Summary

The author begins this chapter with the story of how a conversation with a friend of Dave’s who was living with multiple sclerosis helped her realize that sometimes, people dealing with trauma or difficulty want to talk about it, and welcome the opportunity to do so. She describes her own, earlier reluctance to ask the friend about his situation because she believed it would upset him, or remind him of what he was dealing with, and then describes the realization that emerged as a result of their conversation. “It wasn’t possible for me to remind that he was living with MS,” she says. “He was aware of that every minute of every day” (32).

This leads the author to contemplation and analysis of what she refers to as “the mum effect” – that is, people keeping...