Chapter One

You have a year to live.

How does that make you feel?

Are you going to sit around and think about what that means or are you going to think like Penny? Penny's attitude was "Right then, bring it on. I'm going to live every last second I have to the full."

When my mother told me she had 'a year' it took me a while to realise she meant a year to live – just a year. At first, I thought she meant she'd be ill for a year. I imagined a year of comings and goings to hospital, a year of radiotherapy, of chemotherapy, of losing appetite, losing hair, not having much energy, basically a year of illness getting in the way of life. But I thought there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Self preservation, I reckon.

I can't remember now exactly when the realisation came in my own case but I think it was pretty close to the end. I continued to believe that my mother would get better even when she was mostly bedridden, not eating, barely drinking.

Annie, too, believes in the wonders of modern medicine. She believes her mother will get better. Penny is a strong character. She is full of determination and she is damned sure that she is going to make the most of life. This illness isn't going to get her down.

Is Annie being unrealistic? Undoubtedly, but I'm not going to tell her that.