We’re all just butterflies

Lillian Hubery, 56, from Coventry

Pulling my four-year-old son Niall onto my lap, I stroked his hair.

‘I’ve got something to tell you, my love,’ I said gently. ‘You know Granny wasn’t very well? Well, she’s gone to Heaven now.’ Niall was quiet for a moment, then he turned to look at me, his big blue eyes serious. ‘Dying is like being a butterfly,’ he said. ‘You change from being a caterpillar to a butterfly where you become free and fly off.’ I found myself thinking about what he’d said, 24 years later, as I was driving home from a hospital appointment. I’d developed shingles last November, then a chest infection, and on 4 December, I’d