A week before she died, at the age of eighty-two, I asked my mother if there was anything she wanted to pass on to me: any thought on living or dying that she might want to leave to the next generation. She looked up at me from her hospital bed, all large eyes gazing out at me from gaunt features. I shall never forget that look. She reached out her hand and, with a faint smile, gripped my arm. I shall not forget that either. In her dying hours, my mother communicated to me not what she knew but who she was.

Roger Housden, Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living