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My mother's death brought me to my knees. She was my hero, my role model, my very best friend. I spoke to her every single day of my life. I really tried hard when I grew up to make her proud of me.

My silver cord - the link between my body and my spirit - was extremely sensitive. It was what allowed me to sense dreamscapes at a distance. It could also snap me back into my skin.

When my mother died, it sort of put a damper on things. My career didn't have the same significance or excitement. It had always been about doing well for my family - my brothers, sisters, father, mother. Then something interesting and important happened - I started doing things for me.

My mother Molly had a nervous breakdown after my father Chic died, aged 50. He was a very generous man who ran a shop in Dundee giving a lot of people tick. When he died, a lot of people hadn't paid their bills, so he died with a lot of debt. After he died, my mother went doolally.

I felt like an extraordinary hero. I was only five or six and I had the whole of life in my hands. Even if I had been driving the carriage of the sun I could not have felt any better.

My grandmother had the most dramatic effect on my life because she set me in one direction, and I had to go back the other direction for my sanity, and for my ability to be a social human being.

I had a mystical experience when I was in my late teens, early 20s, and I spent years trying to recapture that.

All my life, I had this idea that if I could unravel the mystery that was my mother, then I could help save her. But it didn't really work. We were close, but she struggled with mental illness and alcoholism, and it was rough at times.

My mother is a survivor who's had a lot of things happen in her life that have been very trying.

I couldn't have foreseen all the good things that have followed my mother's death. The renewed energy, the surprising sweetness of grief. The tenderness I feel for strangers on walkers. The deeper love I have for my siblings and friends. The desire to play the mandolin. The gift of a visitation.