[Magdalen] Prayers please

[Roger Stokes]

Of your charity please pray for my sister-in-law Margaret Stokes who 
died this evening. She was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease five 
years ago and for most of that time has been cared for at home, mostly 
by my brother Ian with some support from carers coming in daily. A 
live-in carer started in February this year when my brother was 
persuaded to agree to this, a great relief to him and the family of 
three daughters who all live some distance away. They were born on the 
same day and celebrated their Golden Wedding in July with a concert in 
their parish church where Margaret continued as PCC (Vestry) Secretary 
for a while even after the disease started limiting her. Her brain 
remained sharp at the Wedding celebration she was able to greet people 
and communicate through an iPad where she could spell out words which 
were then turned into speech recorded by her eldest daughter.

While Ian said that her death is a relief he will feel the loss after a 
long marriage and, sadly, he will not even have the relief of faith in 
this having turned away from the Church long ago for reasons I do not know.

Roger