HarryC

After my mother passed away, I needed all the support I could get - and it wasn't coming to me from family. Although I'm not religious, I keep an open mind on spiritual matters. On my birthday that year - 5 days before mum's funeral - I decided to see a medium who'd been recommended to me by a friend. It gave me a lot of the reassurance I needed - though much more was to come.

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.