About

Sally arrives to our interview about three minutes late and knocks delicately on the front door. In her hand she has a bag of baked sweets she has brought from her favourite bakery. She promptly apologises for her tardiness and explains there was more traffic than she expected. Her clothes are tidy, her hair is immaculately neat and in her hand she has two pages of notes about what she wants to talk about.“I could talk the leg off of a chair,” she warns us as she takes her seat.She seems nervous but ready to be open, she wants to talk about herself; where she is, how she got there and what the future holds. Initially she is trepidatious but soon she laughs about how she will need to lick the icing from her fingers after taking a bite from her sweet.Then she starts talking about her diagnosis of stage four cancer. But she is calm about it, it is what it is. She gets technical, almost surgical. If she makes a mistake she corrects herself. She might not have told this story out loud before, but she has rehearsed it.Intertwined with commentary about how the doctors gave her two years to live she reminisces about her family, particularly her children and repeatedly says how proud she is of them. They are her biggest achievement.She feels for them. She will die and they will be orphans, she says almost wrapped with guilt. They are her primary concern.Their reactions are the only thing she cannot control.She chooses to mask the fear she has for herself with selflessness for her children. Then she laughs. She laughs because otherwise she might cry.She laughs because she has had a good life and she has afforded the same to her children.