Member

I want to relate one time with my mother. I have to say that my mother had quite a number of deathbed scenes, by which I do not mean that she was melodramatic; I mean that we kept being told that she was about to die, which just shows that a terminal illness diagnosis is unreliable, because she got better over many a year, as they say. In one instance, she had had a UTI, then she got pneumonia—deathbed scene, disorientated, black mood—and she said to me, “What’s the point?”; she wanted to give up. She was in a desperate state, and I thought I was saying goodbye to her. Days later, I went to see her, and she was bright and optimistic, holding court about politics while watching the news—yes, I take after my mother—in the TV room of the care home. I said to her, “Oh, it’s good that you’re quite bright; you were a bit depressed last week”, and she said, “Don’t be silly, I don’t get depressed and I’ve never been happier”.