I saw my mother in San Francisco a few weeks before she died. I’d flown in from Australia after visiting my son and his young family. Though they live far away, breaking up the journey home by seeing family in San Francisco is a real consolation.

My mother was 94 and physically frail but fully compos mentis. Her greatest pleasure was a longstanding Shakespeare group which she ran monthly out of her apartment. She began her career as an actor in London and went on to direct in Boston. When I was a girl, it was she who encouraged me to memorize poems so that I’d have “a little library in my head,” and naturally Shakespearean sonnets were among the first things I memorized.

But during this visit, her health suddenly deteriorated. At one point, we thought it must be the end, but then she rallied, and over the next several days, my sisters and I took turns sitting with her while she slept.

Intermittently, she’d awaken to recount dreams and detailed childhood memories. She seemed to be reliving the important hinge points in her life. She recalled how before the war, she loved to walk around the lake at her aunt’s estate. She told me again about learning on her birthday that her brother had been killed in battle. She remembered her joy at tasting a banana during wartime rationing in London. Then, with a new thought, she suggested I open her iPad to read what she’d written for her Shakespeare group because, she said, “I think you’ll understand it.”

“Here is the next batch of speeches,” she’d written, continuing:

“We will talk briefly about them at our next meeting, that is the last Tuesday of March — but our focus will be the Hamlet soliloquy. I would also love to hear any of the earlier speeches you did too, but the time goes so quickly! I really hope you are reading these speeches aloud during the weeks between meetings. This is how you will benefit most. Our meetings are like the preparations for a lovely feast. You learn the various ingredients needed, but you won’t reap the reward of the class if you don’t SAY THE WORDS ALOUD! That’s the MEAL!”

“Yes,” I told her. “I understand exactly what you mean.”

But soon, I was flying home to Virginia. I promised her I’d be back. She was lying on the sofa, and her smile said something I didn’t want to acknowledge — that this was likely our final farewell.

I told myself I had no choice. Work was waiting, as well as a visit from my daughter and her partner, who live in France. Nevertheless, I booked a flight back to San Francisco for a few weeks later, after my daughter’s scheduled departure.

Over those weeks, my sisters and a nephew took turns staying with my mother round the clock. We were in constant communication with each other. Occasionally I sent voice messages — singing a hymn to her or reciting one of her favorite sonnets — something I felt she could grasp. It’s astonishing how long the dying process can take. She had many good days in between the bad ones, and at times was almost her old self. One day, my sister sent me a video of her sitting up in a chair in her nightdress and holding court. She was explaining to visiting friends why the Elizabethans gestured so broadly with their arms: to show off their wonderful sleeves.

Oh, I’ll be back in time, I thought.

By now, my Australian loved ones felt farther away than ever. And I’d almost forgotten my granddaughter’s birthday! Beatrix was turning 4, and I hadn’t even thought of a present. Last year, I sent her a fairy dress. But at this point, she had way too many tutus and loads of different toys. So, I decided to write and illustrate a book for her. I called it Too Many Tutus. I wanted our time together to be fixed in her memory.

I sat in the window seat of my library, texting or talking with my sisters and writing the little book illustrated with pictures, in watercolor or pen and ink, which I copied from recent photographs. Beatrix playing puzzles, Beatrix on her scooter, Beatrix dressed in various tutus, as well as Beatrix screaming. (How she hates to brush her hair!)

I bought two sketchbooks, one for her and one for me — and a watercolor set for us both. I wrote and illustrated the story in my sketchbook to send along with a second blank sketchbook in which she could illustrate her own stories.

This activity kept my mind on something calm and restorative while I was checking in with my sisters. I was nurturing a new familial relationship even as I was letting go of another.

I spent a lovely two weeks with my daughter and her partner, and I honored my mother by participating in a sound meditation. I mailed Beatrix’s paintbox and both sketchbooks to Australia, as well as a hairbrush especially for untangling hair. Then, two days before my daughter returned to France, one of my sisters phoned with the news that our mother had passed.

By the end of the week, I was back in California. My sisters and I spent the following days clearing out her apartment. We did it with gratitude for the life she had lived. We distributed her treasures. I kept her collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets and several other books, some of which I’d given her myself.

But writing that story for Beatrix was a splash of inspiration during a difficult time. And the book was a hit with the family. In fact, Beatrix and I have since written another story together called Bye Bye Beanie. It’s about her owl hat, which, much to her distress, blew away on Mount Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania. In the story, the hat grows wings, becomes a real owl, and flies off to roost in a mountain pine.

I should also add that my poetry podcast, “Read Me a Poem,” produced by the American Scholar, is a testament to an important gift my mother nurtured in me — the joy of reciting poetry, feeling it in my bones, and sharing it with others.

Amanda Holmes Duffy is a columnist and poetry editor for the Independent and the voice of “Read Me a Poem,” a podcast of the American Scholar.

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