Cirrus@Austlit

'My mum lies on the couch in her flannel pyjama pants and fluffy grey Aldi jacket. The dog sits next to her with her head on the cushion. Mum has been a paediatric intensive care nurse for twenty-six years now, and says she has lost count of how many children she has withdrawn support on. I tell her that I am writing this piece on palliative care, and that I want to draw together the concepts of motherhood, nurturing, productivity, periods, death, care, Socrates and capitalism. I tell her that ninety-three per cent of palliative care nurses and sixty-two per cent of specialist palliative medicine physicians in Australia and New Zealand are women, and that they also make up the majority of unpaid carers. She says, 'I don't know, Abs. When I'm with a dying person there's no gender. It's just being there for them.' I tell her that I think death is like gardening, and read her a quote by Helene Cixous: 'It is women who weep... It is salted milk' Mum says, 'Who is Helene Cixous?' Quietly, I delete my paragraph on Socrates. She recommends two books that shaped her approach to end-of-life care: 'My Grandfather's Blessings' by Rachel Naomi Remen, and Being with Dying by Joan Halifax.'  (Publication abstract)