I FORGAVE MY DAD ON HIS DEATHBED

It took him falling ill for Natasha Harding, 48, to be reconciled with her father

- NATASHA HARDING

Feeling a gentle nudge, I yawned and rolled over. ‘Tashy, are you awake?’ whispered a voice.

I turned my head and saw my mum standing there. It was January 1994 and I knew what had happened. ‘Dad?’ I asked. She nodded her head, and then tears began falling from her eyes as I leapt from my bed to comfort her. ‘Oh Mum,’ I said. We stood like that for a while in the darkness until she was able to speak. ‘I got the call last night and went to the hospice. It was a peaceful ending.’

My brother Jason, then 17, came into the room and we sat on my bed, too stunned to cry or speak.

Although I knew this day was coming, it was still a shock. My dad Colin had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) two years earlier and his demise had been quick and brutal.

I’d gone from seeing my confident, charismatic father reduced to using a wheelchair and having carers visit twice a day to help him in and out of bed. Simple tasks such as lifting a glass to drink were impossible, and his once beautiful writing turned to a toddler’s scrawl. He’d choked constantly and his speech was lost.

I hadn’t heard of motor neurone disease until his diagnosis in 1992, when I was 17. All I knew was that he’d fallen over three times and broken bones each time.

My mum Teresa, then 43, was a constant source of support for him, accompanying him to his hospital appointments. When MND was eventually confirmed by a neurologist and we were told it was terminal, my mum announced that Dad should move back to the family home in Kent.

I was absolutely furious. Because Dad hadn’t lived with us in years and a big part of me was mad at Mum for letting the man who’d treated her so badly back into the family home.