Writing honestly approximately her mother’s death and her dysfunctional family has helped her to surviveLooking down at my mother’s pale,papery face as she lay on her care-home bed, eyes closed, and breaths sounding as if they were gurgling up from the bottom of a mud swamp,I accepted at last that she was going to die. My sister, who had arrived half an hour before me and requisitioned the “best” side of the bed, and clutched Mum’s head in the criminal of her arm and cooed at her. I held Mum’s hand but she was twisted absent from me towards my sister. I felt excluded from her death.
I’d received a message 40 minutes before,while at the launch party for my first book, that Mum was turning blue, and so I left the party and raced across town in a cab. I was relieved when I arrived to see that my mother was still alive and annoyed to see my sister had her in a headlock. After an hour I suggested she let fade for a while,that we take turns on the side Mum was facing. She declined forcefully, with swearwords. My sister had lived on the other side of the world for 40 years. I’m the one who’s been here for Mum, and I fumed,the one who’s looked after her. Been there for all her Christmases and birthdays. Taken her on holidays.
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Source: guardian.co.uk