01603 507 596 Email: headoffice@blackswan.co.uk

Heathcote says goodbye to resident with special surprise for his wife who still resides in the home

Name: Black Swan Care Group
Address: 10 Meridian Way, Norwich, Norfolk, NR7 0TA, GB
Telephone: 01603 507 596

01/11/2020

When our resident Robin sadly passed away recently, we worked with his family and friends to create a special memorial in the garden to keep him close to his wife Marie, who still lives in the home.

Robin and Marie were married for 62 years. After spending over six decades together you can imagine the effect losing Robin had on Marie and their family. Our staff wanted to make sure that Marie didn’t feel lonely, so they made some arrangements with the people closest to Robin and Marie for a special surprise.

Robin was an avid twitcher, referring to the birds that flew through the home’s garden as ‘his birds’. He would spend the majority of his time sitting in Marie’s room with her, watching the birds and spending quality time with his wife. Robin would even go as far as to share his tuna sandwiches with the local birds, which he believed was their favourite treat.

Robin’s close friends Elizabeth and Carl wanted to do something special to memorialise Robin and his wonderful personality, whilst doing something for Marie. Carl built a custom bird table and feeder which now sits happily outside Marie’s room, allowing her to feel connected with Robin long into the future.

Elizabeth told us why they wanted to do this for Marie:

“It was a real privilege for us to be able to dream up and make the Robin bird feeder in memory of a dear friend who spent so much time feeding and watching the birds. To know his memory lives on in the bird feeder Carl made is a delight.”

After the delivery was made Marie set to work with our maintenance man Aidy, deciding together what would be the best position for the bird table to be situated so she could see it from her bedroom window.

Marie told us what its like to have something so special to Robin, close to her at all times:

“Having the bird table outside my window is very nice. I’m looking forward to the Spring when I’ll be able to watch more of Robin’s birds”.

To ensure that Marie gets to see as many of Robin’s birds as possible, the home are planning on creating an aviary for the home so Marie is never short of birds to watch. Manager Sylvia Ames told us why they felt it was so important to do this for Marie:

“We thought having the birds table outside Marie’s room would be the first thing she sees when opening curtains in morning and last thing at night.

“We wanted to give her memories of Robin as he loved to be outside feeding the birds as often as possible and then they would both watch from the window the array of birds that visited.

“We were also donated some money from friends and relatives of them both after Robins funeral and we are looking at getting a small aviary and a few birds so Marie can get involved with looking after them”.