Autobiography

Another short extract from my book about my time spent caring for my mother during her final illness. After being rushed into hospital with renal failure, she hadn't been expected to survive. Miraculously, though, she pulled through and began to get physically better. But the ward she was put on was dismal and her psychological health began to suffer. She was expected to stay in for ten days. Then it became two weeks. Then three. Each time I visited, they kept putting her discharge date back another few days - and with each delay, she was getting more and more depressed. Her sister, Phyllis, had come to stay at mum's bungalow to keep it occupied for her return.

In 2017, I took extended leave from work to care full-time for my mother. A sudden illness had left her unable to live independently, and it would have broken her heart - and mine - if she'd had to go into residential care. She was only expected to live for a few weeks, and she wanted to spend those weeks in her own home, with familiar things around her, and family and friends close by. In the end, she lived a further seven months. Afterwards, I wrote a long book about her life, focusing on those precious months. This excerpt comes from near the beginning, when mum's rushed into hospital. She's delirious from the illness. I'm called into a side room and given the news.

In school I was timid, feeling my heart pounding in my chest and blood rushing to my cheeks, as my turn to speak up in class, snuck closer. I’d...

What are the memorable moments of my life? I have survived for seventeen extensive years. Several moments, in my mind, are endlessly ripe. I have...