She was too YOUNG TO DIE

Losing her mother at Christmas changed Kiran Sidhu’s view of the festivities

- KIRAN SIDHU

The older I get, the younger my mother’s age of death seems. My mum Piari was 62 when she died of womb cancer on Christmas Eve 2014 – four days after my 40th birthday. I am now 46 and, since then, I’ve learnt that you can’t predict how certain events in your life will shape your future.

My mother’s parents were old when they died. We would go to my grandparents’ house, which was local to us, and do things that you’d expect to do with grandparents; we’d have tea and cake, talk about old family memories and laugh and joke. And if it was the weekend, we’d stay for dinner. I thought I’d have the same with my own mother. I assumed she would be old when she died and I would look after her, just as she had looked after me growing up. But things didn’t happen that way and that was a mistake I made – to assume the future.

The expression ‘life is short’ is often thrown about, so much so, that it has become ineffective in its over-familiarity. We no longer hear the meaning, just three insipid words strung together and echoed throughout our lives. But as I saw my mother’s 62-year-old body wasting away in hospital as the rest of the world spread Christmas cheer, I finally understood those words.

I’d always been close to my mum, and over the years we’d shared a love of adventure. We’d been on holidays together; to Crete, Marrakech and Barcelona. She had encouraged me in my writing career and had always got along well with my husband Simon.