In the early hours of the morning, around 4:30am on January 18, 2026, I lost my mother to a completely unexpected and shocking cardiac arrest.
Around this time my Mum was experiencing RBD (REM Sleep Behavior Disorder), essentially meaning she would act out her dreams. She experienced it on and off for the best part of a decade every 6-12 months so this just seemed like routine at this point. Me and my partner, my sister and my Dad would take turns nightly to ensure that she was safe and would never act out a dream that could cause her any physical harm.
This night was my night, it started off as any other, she was moving around a lot, slurring her speech as she was talking to someone in her dream. Like I said, at this point relatively routine. She then slumped forward a little and ended up falling off the sofa onto the floor. I then took it upon myself to wake my Dad as I required assistance getting her up off the floor. Me and my Dad were discussing our options to help her up, as it wasn’t as simple as waking her because she would often come to and then be out like a light again, we had a physically lift her off the floor.
Then it began, she slumped backwards, her back against the sofa. She began breathing very inconsistently, very quick and very deep, often wheezy at times. Her whole abdomen convulsed with each breathe, and then her whole body slumped to the side. It was at this point she stopped moving entirely, and the color of her face went gray. In this moment I panicked, ran around the house with my hands over my head screaming “I don’t like this, I don’t know what to do”. My father called 999 and the operator on the other end told him to administer CPR, to which he did and had no response and most dauntingly, no pulse. It was at this point I knew deep down that I had just lost my mother.
999 had dispatched an ambulance along with 7 paramedics to our house, in an attempt to resuscitate my Mum. At this point my Dad had told me to go downstairs with my sister and my partner. We were waiting at the bottom of the stairs as the paramedics arrived with a defibrillator. Me, my sister and my partner at this point were absolutely crippled with fear, in the distance we could hear the beeping of the machines as well as the voice on the defibrillator saying “no pulse”. The paramedics tried for an hour to resuscitate my Mum. Unfortunately they couldn’t, and she was pronounced dead there and then.
Today, I have dreams every night of the sound of that defibrillator, beeping away over and over again, only to hear “no pulse”. I am doing about as well as can be expected, but I live life knowing that my Mum would be so proud of me for being there with her that night, not letting that experience define me as a person and carrying her love, light and guidance in my heart for the rest of my days. She is my guardian angel and even while writing this, I know she’s gently caressing the top of my head and saying “Well done for putting your story out there”.
Mum, I will take the lessons you taught me and use them to do good in life. I will always cherish your memory, your love and your warm embrace. Thank you for raising me to be the man I have become. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be who I am. It’s just a shame that I cannot give back to you in the way that you gave to me in life, there is truly nothing more I want to do then to give back to you, even if you wouldn’t accept it anyway! But I will continue to look after myself and everyone else, in turn, looking after your babies. That’s the most I can give back now. Thank you Mum, I love you, night night and I’ll see you in the morning.