We didn’t see her all the time, because she lived a couple of hundred miles away, but she always made sure they came round when we went to visit my parents. She wasn’t someone I would ever have had any connection with if she hadn’t been family, but she was one those people who keeps families together. She took good care of my parents even when she was so ill herself. Last Friday, she was planning to do some shopping for my mother after seeing the GP — but the GP said she needed to go straight into the hospice.

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