I am reading this piece of memoir that I've just found while looking for articles. It's the experience of a daughter whose mum was diagnosed with cancer.

The diagnosis was made and the experts told her that she had 1 year left to live at best. Her daughter, Cheryl, narrates how her mother died, with needles and cables all over her body. She was in disbelief, shocked. She wanted the nurses to put the needles back, so her mom could breathe again. 'But I wanted it back, and eventually I would get it.' That is the first clue we have about her later drug addiction.

The writing was surprisingly sharp but tender. I got goosebumps. She described her close relationship with her mother, her only meaningful relationship at that time. I could feel how deeply she loved her, and then how, all of a sudden, her mother was taken away from her.

She met this boy Joe, a junkie, and lived with him for a while after her mother died. She describes their relationship as strong, not because they loved each other, but because both of them allow the other to destroy themselves; the kind of strong bond that lovers have, but not quite. She left him, then went back and then she never saw him again.

For me, she wrote that piece beautifully. The preciseness and assertiveness of her words made me a little emotional.

I would recommend it!

Little quote:

'It is perhaps the greatest misperception of the death of a loved one: that it will end there, that death itself will be the largest blow.'