Róisín Ingle

I was interviewing Bettina on Zoom and

And then I asked her where she lived and she said North Strand.

And I said, oh, where?

And then she said my road.

And then she said, what number?

And it's literally like, that was weird.

Anyway, it seems weird that I went to see Bettina in a way because like she's an end of life person.

But I did go to see her very close to when I've got this news.

I was thinking, why am I doing this?

Because she deals with people who are dying and I don't want to die, you know, but it was wonderful to see her anyway.

She's from East Germany and she told me about an expression in Germany.

I don't know the German of it, but it translates to illness, a chance, illness, comma, a chance.

And that really helped me.

It really stuck with me.

Illness, an opportunity.

Illness, there is something transformative and amazing that can come from that.

I mean I did think about it yeah I did think about it and I loved hearing about death cafes and people going to I hadn't been to one but and also I talk about it with my mother because my mother like is very good at talking about death she's talked about donating her body to science but not in any big way and like I haven't got any sort of cancer in our family really

Or, you know, people are, the genes are good.

You know, you look back and the fact people living to long ages and everything like that.

So I kind of a little bit of a, oh yeah, you know, even though I'm maybe not the most fittest person in the world, I kind of felt like I'm a strong person.