A few hours before my mother died, eventually of pneumonia, the disease they call ‘the old man’s friend’, in a small side room with muted lighting in our local hospital, there was a deluge of rain. I can’t recall whether curtains or a blind screened the window, but I remember being puzzled by the sudden hissing noise, and crossing the room to peer outside, and seeing flat roofs, and the sheeting rain in the October night. The sound of the rain, and of my mother’s breathing.