My sister was 45 when she was knocked off her bike as she cycled to work. She suffered severe concussion, drifted into unconsciousness and died 2 days later. The doctors told my parents that the damage to her brain was so extensive that if she survived she would probably be in a vegetative state, or close to it. My mother, who was nearly 80 said she had never imagined that she would ever sit by one of her children's beds and pray that they would die, because their prospects ,if they lived, were so terrible. My mother lived another 7 years, but I do not think she ever recovered from the circumstances of my sister's death.
I knew nothing of this. We had gone away for a short break, just before mobile phones and I came home to the news that in my four day absence my younger sister had died.
The shock of that moment will be always with me.