Although I am a long time New York resident, I still have a lot of love for my home town, Windsor. As soon as I heard the date of the Royal Wedding, I booked a flight. My mum is a huge fan of the Royal Family, and she started anticipating the wedding from the moment the date was announced.

As we walked around Windsor the day before the wedding, I couldn't help feeling uplifted by the happy fans waiting to catch a glimpse of the royal couple.

Joseph Afrane from Battersea in London had already been in his spot two days on the day before the wedding.

"I love it," he said. "I love the Royal Family. They support charities. The support everyone. They're doing a good job. I have to support them."

Wendy Cox and Anne Hall came from Yorkshire to claim their spot the day before the wedding.

"We've done it since Charles married Diana. We have to support Harry," Wendy said. "This might be our last one."

This lady from New Orleans said she came for Harry.

"I came for William too. And the Jubilee. Harry's getting married! I've got to be here for Harry!"

Sharon McKewan picked a prime spot outside the castle to wait overnight.

"It's exciting," she said. "It's the first time for a wedding like this in the Royal Family. Meghan is mixed race. This will unite people and bring everyone together."

Two wedding parties came out of the Guild Hall outside the Windsor Castle. The crowd cheered them.

"Everyone is so happy and nice," my mum said. "It's lovely to be out in this atmosphere."

Two strangers gave free flags to my mum, and she tried a slice of lemon and elderflower cake, which the tea shop outside the castle said was just like the one that will be served at the wedding.

The Long Walk was lined with drawings, mostly by local children. Fans waited in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the happy couple, and some were lucky enough to meet Harry and William.

I don't know how much we will see of the wedding tomorrow, and I don't know what makes this wedding so different from any other wedding, nor why so many people feel connected to this couple they don't know. But I know that a lot of people are delighting in the wonderful distraction of all this pomp and splendour.

The floors are sky blue and the walls are butter cream yellow. When my mother moved from a bed with red curtains to a bed with blue curtains, it seemed to be a move from danger to safety.

But then the doctor called me out for a chat, and he took me to a private room.

“It will be very difficult for your mother to make it to Christmas,” he said. “I don’t like to make estimates about time, but she is very weak. I don’t expect her to see 2018.”

There was a window in the room and a robin hopped from a high branch of an elm tree to a closer branch. Or there might not have been a window at all. It might have been a wall with a whiteboard, and a chart with patient’s initials and codes for their various conditions.

“I explained the situation to your mother and she signed this DNR form.”

The doctor opened his white folder to the front page, to show the blue purple paper with black writing that said, “Do Not Resuscitate” at the top.

“Your mother is very weak,” the doctor said. “If her heart stops, it would be too traumatic to try to make it start again, and it would not have a good result, it wouldn’t work.”

The doctor’s ecru-colored trousers had knife creases, and the buttons on his shirt strained slightly around his middle.

“I just wanted to explain the situation to you so you are prepared,” he said.

As he stood up to leave, I felt that I needed to learn something deeper from this man who must have seen hundreds of people pass away.

“She said she’s scared about what comes next,” I said. “What can I tell her?”

“With her condition, she won’t be in a lot of pain,” he said. “Most likely she will become very tired. Then she will lose interest in eating. Then she will just fall asleep and not wake up.”

But what about after that, I wanted to say. What about after she doesn’t wake up.

“You have to forget about tomorrow,” he said. “If she is here today, have a good day today.”

In her bed, my mother groaned with each breath, her body curled into a fetal skeleton. Other patients moaned and cried rhythmically around her.

I brought her a full English breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and tomatoes, and a hot cup of tea. She sat up and ate most of it. She smiled and laughed and asked why Princess Diana was on the front page of the Daily Mail today, and why it had been Marilyn yesterday.

“Why do they keep bringing people back from the past?” she asked.

“I suppose when people are special, we always want to know more about them,” I said. “And I suppose everyone has something special about them if you know them well enough.”