Sian Lloyd’s mother died last month after a 14-year battle with Parkinson’s and dementia - but the weather forecaster doesn’t want to know if she faces similar problems.
Sian, 61, told the Mirror she will not take genetic tests to see if she is at risk of the same degenerative conditions after describing an emotional family meal hours before mum Barbara’s death.
“To live with that kind of knowledge is something I don’t want to do,” she says. “There’s no link been proved, that is what they say, but it could be the case. I want to enjoy my time, the time I’ve got left.”
The family gathered at Barbara’s residential home near Swansea after being told that her breathing was failing.
“She was a great cook, so we had a homemade picnic in her room that lasted all afternoon,” said Sian.
“I’d made all sorts of sandwiches and her favourite homemade sausage rolls. They say that hearing is the last to go so we were trying to laugh and were toasting her and talking about her.
"She knew we were picnicking, that there were memories there and she was surrounded by family.”
Later that evening the family were called and told Barbara had died, aged 86. She was laid to rest a week later.
“Afterwards you see the size of the hole that they’ve left,” Sian continues.
“I try to see the lively, musical, intelligent, bright woman but that last image where the breath has left and everything is gone is also fighting the image of the bright, vibrant lady.
“In many ways I’m glad I wasn’t there right until the end. Loss is hard, loss hurts.”
Barbara was given six months to live two years ago, but Sian says her death still came as a “shock”.
Sian recalled how her mother’s mental health deteriorated to the extent that she “became someone she wasn’t” and struggled to recognise her.
She adds: “It makes me want to live each moment even more than ever.”
