Jane finally succumbed to her cancers at 7:20 am on Tuesday 20th of August 2013. She passed away quietly, and was in no pain. Her last words, to our family GP and myself just a couple of days earlier, were “I’m not frightened”.
Jane persisted far longer than the doctors expected. Until June, she was reasonably compos mentis, and mobile, to the extent that she still made occasional visits to the local school to supervise cookery sessions. Given that she had been given 3-6 months in September 2011, I guess that we can say that she had a good run under the circumstances, but it does not make her passing any easier to bear.
The last six weeks were a trial for all concerned, with numerous ups and downs, close calls and false dawns, but Jane made it as easy as possible for family, carers and medical staff by constantly being courteous and grateful to everyone looking after her.
Jane has been described variously as enthusiastic, caring, energetic and inspirational. She was all these things and more - stubborn, tenacious, and focused, able to apply immense effort in spite of personal circumstances when something was promised and a deadline loomed (as I sometimes discovered to my cost! “Faster - we must get this cake to the hotel by 2 o’clock!”)
She was also able to sleep at Olympic standard - power-napping in the car between towns on winding country lanes, or dozing for hours on the motorway. This “recharging” was what seemed to let her keep up a blistering pace the rest of the time - I couldn’t keep up with her normal walking speed.
Music played an enormous part in Jane’s life - both listening and performing - and one song in the Unpaid Invoice repertoire, a favourite of hers, seems most apt at this time. The song is “Only Remembered”, which includes the lines -
Only the truth that in life we have spoken
Only the seeds that on Earth we have sown
These shall pass onwards when we are forgotten
Only remembered for what we have done
I hope the things that Jane did will keep her alive in people’s memories for some time to come - the children that she taught, the cakes that she made, the home that she created, the songs that she sang, and the relationships with friends and family that she nurtured.
At the moment I cannot describe how much I shall miss her - we were such a close match, and where there were points of conflict, we seemed to be sufficiently pragmatic that a compromise was always found. We both knew that we were, to coin a phrase, better together.
One fault that Jane did have was an inability to bring effort to bear on those things that seem like a good idea at first, but for which enthusiasm wanes when the size of the task becomes apparent. She would then either a) try to get me to do it, or b) let it slip until overtaken by events.
This was what happened when she decided in March to write a “Brief History of Jane” as a memorial piece. After about a paragraph, she lost momentum, things got too busy, then her condition worsened...
However, she began the piece with a phrase that, hopefully, was a true reflection of her feelings about her time among us. It reads simply :
