I wake up with headache most days. Possibly dehydrated after sleep. Sometimes, the headache will pass after coffee, which confirms that it’s dehydration – or possibly caffeine withdrawals.

Some days the headache persists and gets worse; that I put it down to stress or noise or light.

This morning, something new occurred to me.

In the last days before she died, mum couldn’t drink – she couldn’t hold anything down. The hospital put her on a saline drip “for comfort”, but she was always thirsty and her lips became dry and cracked.

My brother and I would dab her lips with water on a sponge to moisten them and to try to alleviate her thirst.

Today I wondered whether she was not only in bodily pain, but also suffering crippling headaches those last days of wakefulness.

The thought makes me cry a little.

Grief has found a new way to attack me.