Sitting in a remote cabin earlier this year on the Hebridean isle of Harris, watching the fishing boats come and go in the little harbour, I felt the fog of the previous months finally beginning to clear. I kept thinking back to a cold November night, returning from Leeds to south London, when I finally admitted to myself that something needed to change.
I was exhausted from the long, frequent and often unrewarding round trips to visit my mum. At her care home in Leeds that autumn day, I had tried the usual tricks to summon a reaction from her – news of the grandkids, or re-reading poems and songs she’d written in her days as a primary school headteacher. But for the most part, she remained still and silent.
