To keep going and never give up, and to enjoy it to the absolute full because, at any moment, the curtain can fall.

To not be afraid, to stand there and be strong and loving and honest.

That this was true, I owe to Montaigne. I can’t remember when I read, or was told, that he considered it a good thing to spend a short time every day thinking about death, thus getting used to its inevitability and coming to understand that something inevitable is natural and can’t be too bad, but it was in my early teens, and it struck me as a sensible idea. Of course I didn’t set out to think about death in a regular way every day, but I did think about it quite often, and sure enough, it worked.

That I can’t control it.

Arrogance combined with egotism and selfishness.

It has been in myself, for allowing individuals who I relied on to make important decisions in my life that left me alone to pick up the pieces.

Oprah Winfrey, as Maya Angelou and Tina Turner are no longer with us. These women are Afro-American queens who, despite growing up in the racist south experiencing physical, emotional and sexual abuse, rose to the top of their professions and are an inspiration to women everywhere.

At this time in my life, I quite like myself but, for a large portion of my life, I deplored being shy.

Loving, sincere, honest.

Escaping an abusive teen marriage and being blessed with the opportunity to create a new life for myself and my two young children in London at the height of the swinging 60s.