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She became the size of a sparrow and had the appetite to match.

My mother's terminal illness, pulmonary fibrosis, robbed her of her appetite, her breath and, eventually, her life at 78. But as cruel as this fatal disease was, it never took away her sense of humour.

The humour was something I didn't see in her while I was growing up. My father remembers me announcing to the world that "I have a cruel British mother." She was strict, ensuring my sister and I were impeccable in our manners. Television was taboo after bedtime and principles were ensconced in everything we did.

It was only as her life was nearing its end that we witnessed a new side of her, a cocky and dry British sense of humour. Perhaps it was because she literally had nothing to lose at this point, in palliative care in her Ottawa home among those she loved and trusted. So the stiff upper lip exited, and humour entered.

With idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the lungs fill up with scar tissue. They lose their elasticity, making breathing next to impossible, and oxygen and a number of medications a necessity.

My Dad, who had been Mom's loving partner for 61 years, and my sister, Alyson, who is a retired nurse and lived in the same duplex, became Mom's primary caregivers. And so Mom's newfound dry wit was often tested on the two of them.

One day, when they asked how she was feeling, instead of her usual polite, although untrue response of "fine," she answered that they should try breathing through a straw.

Her palliative-care team also witnessed this sharp wit, which only increased the more incapacitated she became. When she was finally bedridden and shuffling to the bathroom was out of the question, the doctor explained her options - using a bedpan or wearing diapers. Without missing a beat, my mother asked, "What colour do the diapers come in?"

Mom came to love and adore her palliative-care worker, Kerry Ann. Mom called her "Kerry Light Foot," since she was diminutive, energetic and full of vim and vigour.

Kerry Ann's favourite story involves a blue heron that, unbeknownst to her and Mom, had taken up camp in my parents' luscious backyard.

One day as Mom's death drew near, she and Kerry Ann were deep in conversation. Kerry Ann sat next to Mom's bed with her back to the window. The conversation came to an abrupt halt when Mom looked over Kerry Ann's shoulders to ask if an enormous blue heron had just landed on the deck.

Kerry Ann, who didn't bother to look, instead stroked my mother's hand and lovingly said that as the time draws near, we often see things that aren't there. My mother replied, "Dear, I may be near dead but my brain isn't addled"

Her brain was fully functional and sharp, in fact, even a week before her death.

My parents lived on a narrow street overlooking the Rideau Canal. One morning, with no parking available in the driveway, "Kerry Light Foot" had to park illegally on the street. She and my sister were no match for the parking enforcement officer who proceeded to give Kerry Ann a ticket, even after my sister did her best to explain the situation.

When my mother learned of this parking ticket, she would not hear of it. Although bedridden, catheterized, oxygenated, medicated and lacking the strength to even brush her hair, she demanded the phone. She called the city and in her dynamic, indignant way, managed to get Kerry Ann's parking ticket cancelled.

Mom died one week later.

As Dad and I were later going through photographs, reminiscing about her wonderful life, we talked about her recent wittiness and wondered if it had been in her all along. Her strong principles, illustrated by the parking ticket story, were not new to us. But the humour, was this something that was in her as a little girl and was revived as death approached?

I have heard we become more like children as we grow older. As I was reflecting on this, while sifting through Mom's photos, I came upon a picture of her taken when she was a little girl. She was looking coyly at the camera and had an impish smile on her face.

It startled me at first. As she had become more and more ill, she had come to resemble the little girl she once was. So this dry British wit my family witnessed while Mom was bedridden was not new. It had been reborn.

Mom had found herself again. At the same time, we discovered the little girl in her. Eternal optimists, our family finally found the real pot of gold at the end of her long and trying journey: my real Mom. In the end, death really did become her.

Anne St. Dennis lives in Montreal.