My dear mother died of cancer 35 years ago. It was a tragic story of misdiagnosis by doctors to the point where she was told by her family doctor that she was a hypochondriac. After a year of feeling pain that was “only in her head”, with her thinking she was going mad, Dad made her seek other opinions and cancer was discovered in her bladder.

Mum told me that before her first operation she thought she might die. After surviving she said to me that many people say that one should live each day as if it’s your last. However, she said that one should live each day as if it’s your first. After “returning from the grave” She saw the world as if for the first time, in wonder, as someone blind seeing for the first time; every colour vivid, every flower a marvel, life a gift to be treasured and never taken for granted.

Mum showed me a sketch that she made of a brushfire blackened landscape with a tiny red flower at the base of a burnt out tree. Underneath she had written “Courage”.

Mum’s courage battled through more operations and radio therapy. The doctors blamed the cancer on her father chain smoking when she was a child. Mum blamed the stress brought on by the death of my sister at the age of 11. Either way, she remained positive, courageous and resilient.

My mother desperately wanted to live. The cause of her illness was out of her control. I do get very angry when I see people deliberately poisoning themselves and their children by smoking.

When I catch myself staring at the pavement, feeling sorry for myself, I think of the red flower, I think of refocusing on what I have rather on what I haven’t and I try to look at things through the eyes of one seeing for the first time.