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My mum died on a Tuesday morning at 7 am, 25th January 2005; there was a full-moon.

Sans, Yatri, Vimlan, Megan and I spent all night in her room in the hospital, camping out on the floor, and stayed with her to the end. She did it beautifully and was her lovely self all the way through. We made sure she was comfortable, and if she looked distressed we got her more diamorphine. But she didn't need much, and for the last 7 hours needed nothing. She waited until we were all asleep on the floor – except for Yatri who was by her side, and then she breathed her last breath. There was magic in the room through the whole night – and after.

Claiming spurious religious grounds, we told the staff that she wasn't to be touched by anyone but us for 6 hours! We didn't tell them she had already been dead for an hour, whilst we sat with her. It was very beautiful – we had a sense of relief that it was over for her. Then my friend Cara from Arka, the Alternative Funeral Directors, came and she helped me wash and prepare her body, before we massaged lovely oils into her. Clare, mum’s nurse who came 3 times a week to bathe her and take her out for coffee or just chat, came up and was in tears, she thought of my mum as her surrogate granny. She and Yatri chose some clothes for mum: a pink jumper that mum loved, even though it had tomato soup stains on the front, and her mauve trousers and socks and shoes.

We then told the medical staff that we wanted to take her home. This shocked them all, and they all ran around like headless chickens! They told us that due to paper work that she would have to go to the hospital mortuary ice box for a couple of days, until the doctors got around to signing the papers. We said “no way” was she going to their ice box, and we would just put her in our car and take her home!

They had never met anything like this before. The nurses couldn't believe that relatives should pour so much love into a patient...and then want to take her home; they hadn't dealt with this before. They at once loved it, but were also flummoxed. The charge nurse eventually took the initiative and spent the morning running around, sorting it all out for us, before we finally got mum home. Vimlan and Sans and Matthew had come home early and prepared Yatri's front basement with rugs and candles and music and a beautiful Buddha figure and we laid her down on a bed of flower petals, and her leopard rug and pillows where she stayed until Friday when we had her farewell party and cremation.

During those days that my mum was at home, lots of people came to visit her. George, Clare's 8 year old son, went to see her and after said he was never going to shoot anyone on his Playstation again! She looked lovely – as cold as alabaster, just as though she were sleeping. It was lovely to have her there, and be able to go and sit with her, and lie next to her. I was so glad she was at home and not in an icebox. To be able to visit her, to mediate next to her, to sit and drink coffee with friends next to her, to gossip over her, to have time to see and be with her body and really accept that her body was just a shell now – this all really helped us to let go.

We had a “Margie Farewell Sherry, Irish coffee and nibbles Party” on the morning of her cremation. Friends arrived and visited her downstairs and then we bought her up in a beautiful bamboo basket and put her in the middle of the room on the table. We then had some lovely music, soppy songs, and poems, and we had her surrounded by lots of her old photos. There was lots of tears and laughter, and it felt very ordinary. Then 6 guys carried her out of the house and up the road for one last 'look' at her old house, and then into the back of our Mondeo, where she lay surrounded by flowers.

We took her to the crematorium where a few friends had prepared the room with flowers and candles. We listened to music and sang songs and then we left. We went around the back to hear the oven being turned on, so we sat there for a bit until we felt that she was beginning to be 'blown into the wind' and then we left.

Those weeks were amazing and left me with a strong feeling that death can give us far more than it takes away.

Click here to find out more about Archa's work and her upcoming workshop: http://www.livinganddying.co.uk