My 10-year-old self remembers a thing or two about this time.

The hospital's egg curry, a much-loved north Indian dish, was amazing.

The tiny cakes with real butter icing that defied all dietary guidelines weren't bad either so my cousins and I, gathered in the small room, took turns selecting the menu and outwitting the nurses, who sweetly played along, praising the voracious appetite of our fading grandma.

Enveloped in grief at their mother's impending death, the adults couldn't bear to look at the food - if our mirth seemed out of place, they never said so.

As we wolfed down the food and settled down to another game of Scrabble, my diminutive grandma would open her eyes to peer at us.

We often sat within her line of sight and sometimes when she wasn't tired, she would lift her hand in blessing.

She didn't have any last-minute advice for us neither did she say goodbye.

She never cried and she never complained.

In fact, she barely spoke but she smiled when possible.

The kind of quiet, contented smile that said she was at peace with life even though she was dying far too young.

I remember thinking how much she loved her grandchildren - the feeling was so powerful and visceral that it never struck me there could be suffering behind it.

But my grandmother's skin had turned bright yellow and explanations were called for.

"Why is she yellow?"

"They say it's jaundice," the adults replied.

"Why does she have a drip?"

"The doctor ordered it."

"Why is she sleepy?"

"She is tired."

"Is she hungry?"

"No."

"Then, can we have the egg curry?"

There were no doctors in our family and there was no sophisticated understanding of the process of illness and dying.

Since the adults didn't know much, there were no customised, careful explanations for the children. In fact, as loss stared us in the face, there was very little to say. But what we lacked in words we made up for in another way - we stuck together to observe the ritual of dying. Continue reading

• Dr. Ranjana Srivastava is an Australian oncologist, a Fulbright scholar and an award-winning author. Her latest book is After Cancer: A Guide to Living Well.

In a homily at a Mass at St Peter's Square on Sunday for the Jubilee of the Sick and Disabled, the Pope called for mutual solidarity and acceptance.

Francis criticised the modern "objections" raised "to a life characterised by serious physical limitations".

"It is thought that sick or disabled persons cannot be happy, since they cannot live the lifestyle held up by the culture of pleasure and entertainment," the Pope said.

"In an age when care for one's body has become an obsession and a big business, anything imperfect has to be hidden away, since it threatens the happiness and serenity of the privileged few and endangers the dominant model," Francis continued.

"Such persons should best be kept apart, in some ‘enclosure' - even a gilded one - or in ‘islands' of pietism or social welfare, so that they do not hold back the pace of a false well-being," the Pope added.

"In some cases, we are even told that it is better to eliminate them as soon as possible, because they become an unacceptable economic burden in time of crisis."

Francis said that when people shut their eyes in the face of sickness and disability, they fail to understand the real meaning of life which "has to do with accepting suffering and limitation".

"The world does not become better because only apparently ‘perfect' people live there - I say ‘perfect' rather than ‘false' - but when human solidarity, mutual acceptance and respect increase."

"The happiness that everyone desires," the Pope added, can only be "attained only if we are capable of loving".

"It is always a matter of love; there is no other path."

The Jubilee for the Sick and Persons with Disabilities, which ran from June 10-12, was part of the Year of Mercy.

For the first time in a papal Mass in St Peter's Square, on Sunday the Gospel was dramatised by a group of intellectually disabled persons.

This was so the text could be understood by pilgrims with mental disabilities, the Vatican announced.

At the Mass, people with disabilities did various liturgical roles.

Sources

• Vatican Radio
• Catholic News Agency
• Aleteia
• Image: Daily Mail