Cancer.
The very word is enough to give you chills. It consumes you, and eats you from the inside out.
My mother was already widowed when the disease sank its claws into her.
I am an only child. I had to do the right thing, so I moved back into my old childhood home to look after her. I converted a downstairs room, put in a TV and some books, and gave her a bell to summon me.
I can hear the bell now, even above the constant din of the wind and the rain.
My mother died last week.
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