Josephine’s husband had died two years before she started attending St Helena day therapies. When she could no longer care for him, the family spent a long time looking for a care home that suited him. After he moved in, Josephine would visit and sit with him every day from morning to evening, seven days a week, and her daughters were concerned with how their mum would fill her life after he died.

Alison: "But afterwards she was just out there; she said ‘I'm filling up my days, I don't want to sit here and mope’. It got to the point that my sister and I had to book an appointment to go and see her! She just loved being with people; mum was a really sociable person.

"I used to drop her off and pick her up from the day therapies group sometimes so she’d drag me in and she'd introduce me to everyone. At the very beginning she was a bit doubtful about it all because I don't think she wanted doom and gloom but after the first time she said, ‘oh it's great’. She enjoyed it."

Linda: "Mum took me to the day centre and I could cope with that; my sister is the stronger one. That went OK and it was lovely. I didn't really have to link the two together at the time, so that was OK.

"But my first reaction of going to the hospice… I just walked in and I just had to walk out. I was in absolute pieces, absolutely just couldn't do it. I thought no, this is silly. Mum wanted to take us there to prove that it was going to be OK and that's where she wants to go.

"So I sat on the bench outside and a lovely nurse came and spoke to me and we ended up going back in holding hands. At first, my reaction was this is such a sad place but I've got to do this because this is mum's wishes, this is where she wants to end her final days. So we did look around and when we came out I said ‘it’s very calm’."

Alison: "Mum knew what her wishes were so putting that into a book wasn't a problem. We did it as a family. Mum just had everything organised and she used to tell us ‘this is this, this is there for when I'm gone’.

It was Josh who told me now was the time to call mum’s best friends who were abroad at the time to come home. He was honest and supportive, especially in guiding us when things deteriorated quickly, and ensuring mum’s plan was implemented. She could talk to him and tell him everything. When he talked, no matter how hard it was, she listened.

"She was really worried about the Hospice not having a bed and we spoke about that right at the beginning with Josh. We were honest. Mum said that she'd rather be the in The Hospice knowing that she was being looked after so the onus wasn’t on me and my sister. It was what she wanted. She had always been positive for us. She used to discuss everything with us so I can't say there was anything really a shock, there was no, oh we didn't think about that because mum had arranged everything."

Linda: It helped to have her wishes written down. This is what she wanted to do and it was our duty to abide to that; mum looked after us all our years and she always used to say ‘as big as you are, you're still my baby’. I knew where all the finances were but it did make it easier knowing that she wanted to go to the hospice because then suppose she hadn't talked about it but did really, really want to go there; how would we have known what to have done?

Just before Christmas 2019, Josephine was admitted to the hospice for just over a week to help manage her pain and make her comfortable. There she enjoyed hand and foot massages from the complementary therapists, as well as time to relax in the lounge sitting with her daughters or reading the newspaper.

Linda: "After going there to look around that very first time with the shock of it all, when mum actually got taken in for her first break I found it completely different to that very first experience. I suppose I'd been in there and I had a little idea of where things were. Although it was really sad because mum was in there, we had some fun times. People think you're not going to laugh there but we did, even in mum’s final days we still laughed together.

"It was just before Christmas and a choir came in and that was lovely to hear. The rehab girls brought around a walking frame which mum didn’t really want to use so the girls took it away and decorated it with tinsel and she was as pleased as punch with it."

Alison: "Mum went home and we had a lovely Christmas. She was adamant that she was going to have a good Christmas, and she kept saying ‘I'm not going to die because I don't want to ruin anyone’s Christmas’. And this is typical mum. Mum was in control of so much it's unbelievable!"

Linda: "We had an amazing Christmas and her birthday is on New Year's Day and mum and dad’s anniversary is on Boxing Day, so we had everything in that short space of time. We managed to celebrate Christmas and she said ‘this one of best Christmases, I wish dad was with us’. I’d said if she was feeling up to it, I would do dinner for everyone on her birthday; she really wasn't well but we had an amazing time. My children came round and she saw the grandchildren as well so that was lovely.

"At one point it was just all the girls, so we sat round the table with all these generations; there was my mum, there was me, my sister and her daughter, my daughter and her daughter. We just had an amazing time and she had that experience because she was at home."

Alison: "I remember mum was in bed and she needed help to get out; from that point I'd say she was bed bound. She was just lying in bed and she cried and said ‘this is it’. That was the only time mum showed just a little bit of fear factor."

CNS Josh arranged for the virtual ward to visit for a couple of days to help the sisters with their mum’s personal care until a bed was available at The Hospice.

Linda: "I think in 24 hours it was amazing what Josh managed to get done. It seemed mum kept it very, very quiet right up to very last. We knew she was really, really poorly because we used to go on a daily basis, but she seemed to go downhill pretty rapidly.

"It was very sad when she left her home to go in the ambulance. We could see her face looking up at the building as if to say I won't be coming back this time. But in another way, it was comforting, knowing now that it was mum's wishes to go to the hospice."

Josephine enjoyed the company of all the staff and volunteers she came across.

Alison: "They all became our family for that time; an extended family we had at the hospice."

Linda: "Everyone was amazing; the domestics, the cooks, everyone was brilliant. My mum had a thing for rocket ice lollies for a couple of days and if they ran out, they would pop out and get some more for her, they were so good. There was one doctor who would sit with mum and hold her hand, and the eye contact between her and my mum! She’d sit and stroke mum's hand and chat to her. Sometimes we’d all be together and then sometimes she’d say ‘I need to talk to mum by herself now, is that okay girls?’ and we’d go off down to the lounge.

"As much as the staff were 100% for mum, it didn't just stop at mum, they helped us as well, they were so kind. It was ‘right girls you need to get some sleep’ or ‘what have you eaten?’ They were all concerned, and sometimes a nurse would come down and just sit and have a chat with us for half an hour just to see how our feelings were and how we were coping, just as much as how mum was coping.

"It was a relief for all of the family because we had the time to spend with mum and have some happy moments. We didn't have to worry because that worry was taken away from us so we could manage to have nice times. By a person going into The Hospice, all your troubles are shared.

"We were all included apart from when there were times when maybe the chaplain or the doctors come round and they did just need time for mum to talk. I don’t know what was said but we did get told that she wasn't frightened of dying."

Alison: "Mum really connected with Vickie, the chaplain. Vickie had interlinked three wooden hearts and left them for us next to mum’s bed to have one each. Mum took her heart with her, holding the heart on her journey, and we still have our hearts."

The family was all together at the end, where they had a moment which makes them smile to remember.

Linda: "We were all sat discussing what we were going to have sandwich-wise, which is ridiculous when your mum’s lying on the bed potentially going to go at any time. My husband went and got some from the canteen and we took one mouthful of our sandwiches, and all of a sudden, the nurses must have noticed something different in mum and they quickly pulled the curtains round and said it’s not going to be long. And we thought isn’t it amazing, we’ve sat with her hours and just as we’re talking about sandwiches, it was as if ‘well they’re laughing, they’re having a little bit of a joke, I can go now’.

"We didn't miss her going because the sandwiches all got thrown up in the air! It just seemed so funny at the time, that we were all worried about what we were going to eat and it was as if she knew that we were laughing and it was her time then to say goodbye."

Josephine spoke openly about her wishes, choices and feelings about her future after she was diagnosed with a rare cancer. Read Josephine's story.

This story may not be published elsewhere without express permission from St Helena Hospice.