Yesterday my mother told me in the hospital: “Please, don’t leave me alone here. Don’t go away.”

Today she told me: “How are things? Things are shit. And you only make it worse.”

This evening she called a good friend of mine and she told her: “My son is only coming two hours a day to visit me. What is he doing the rest of the day? I thought that he came to Amsterdam to visit me but I hardly see him.”

My friend answered: “First of all he is there every day from three to seven. Second, the remainder of the day he is working. He is always working, even during the weekends.”

‘Oh,” my mother said. “Oh.” And she hung up.

I may be too optimistic, but I believe that this is a sign of recovery.