I’m so sorry to hear about Adrian Chiles’s dad (It is a privilege to be present when someone dies. If only I’d seen it that way, it would have helped me no end, 10 April). It’s an incredibly sad time that I don’t think you can ever be prepared for. I sat with my mum while she died. She’d been ill with Alzheimer’s for a few years and lost her life at just 59. It was horrible.
But in the days after her death, I remember thinking that while it was awful and incredibly difficult to see (her death was a drawn-out one – she never did like saying goodbye), it was also a privilege to be there. I’ve never said that to anyone before writing this letter. I’ve never heard anyone else say it, so to read that really resonated with me, and I am grateful to Adrian for sharing it with us.
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