By the time most people read this, the funeral of my longest-living patient will probably be over.

We first met when I was pregnant and she found out she had cancer. You might think that the juxtaposition of life and death discomfits patients, but children make for a happy point of connection.

Children entered our lives together. As I figured out motherhood, she began caring for a grandchild whose mother was unwell. Cancer on one hand, full-time parenting (as a grandparent) on the other. Without complaining, she took both in her stride.

Things worsened all at once. Her cancer progressed and the grandchild needed permanent care. She had no choice but to develop a singular focus to her visits: to stay alive for him. She loved him with a burning intensity that made her eyes shine and her voice quiver at the thought that he could be left without her.

This expectation sat heavily on my shoulders, and I suspect it’s exactly how she wanted it: for me to know that the welfare of a small child depended on my every move. As her illness advanced, I read more, listened more, and worried more. I needed to keep her alive and well.

To fetch her from the waiting room was a treat – a petite woman tucked away in a corner, wearing simple but marvellous clothes. Never on her phone, sometimes with a book but often content to watch the human traffic of a cancer clinic as if she had nowhere else to........

© The Guardian