There is a question Charlie Beswick can’t stop thinking about.
She is a mother and caregiver to her disabled son, and every day she spends caring for him comes with the same question: what will happen to him when she dies? She isn’t talking about some distant future or an abstract idea. She is talking about the empty chair in the house, the routines no one else knows, and an entire life that today depends on her hands.
That is the question that gives the BBC article its title, and the one that runs through Charlie’s story. Her case reflects that of thousands of families caring for a child with a disability who, when they look ahead, don’t wonder what their own old age will be like, but who will be by their child’s side when they are no longer there.
What would you say to a mother who asks herself this question every night?