A few years ago, June Watson, beloved mother and grandmother of Debbie and Joy, lost her husband Ken to an aggressive form of Leukaemia.

June was, throughout her life up to that sad time, the strong backbone of the Watson family in terms of love and nurture, gently guiding her family through kindness and daily prayer. Her husband Ken was a good provider, decision maker and care giver of his beautiful wife – and sadly, when he passed away, our dear mom and grand-mom lost her will and strength to live. She had lost the love of her life.

After the main shock and heartache of Kens passing, we put our June in a retirement home – but after a very short stay, we received the sad news that June had fallen, and as a result of the shock, had suffered a stroke. She was also suffering from severe dehydration and memory was also rapidly decreasing, due to an aggressive form of Alzheimer’s. June also became paralyzed in her legs.

June was hospitalized for 2 weeks, and we were told she didn’t have long to live, so we then took a decision not to return June back to the retirement home but to move her into her daughter, Debbie’s home, to be looked after by a full-time live-in caregiver, and to take care of her.

Within one month she showed signs of improvement and only continued to improve.  For the first five months, she often couldn’t remember Debbie and Joy – but when you looked into her beautiful face – you would see that she was at peace and sometimes we even got to see that familiar sparkle in her eye.

However, after seven months of constant, loving care and of course, prayer and faith, June improved immensely! She began speaking a little and smiles a lot and she even celebrated her 80th birthday in 2013, this, after she was not expected to survive longer than two or three months!

It is because of our own very difficult and personal experience, that we realize how heartbreaking, and often devastating the time is when an individual or even the family of an individual, has to make a decision of where to live and how to be taken care of when one just simply can’t take care of oneself any longer.

It is because of this very personal experience that we then knew that we had to provide the same dedicated and committed love and care to other mom’s, grand-mom’s, dad’s and granddad’s.

We also found it very important to name our home for the elderly after our dear June – JUNES HAVEN.