In the normal course of events, daily life hums along until it doesn’t. Something crops up and bumps things off-course, ratcheting up the tenor of activity for a time. Then life resumes as usual, or takes on new ways, a reminder of the cyclical nature of things.

The ordinary and the extraordinary have always traveled in tandem, alternating in their own sort of alliance. It makes sense, for instance, that a major illness or accident makes everything else seem minor by comparison. Yet it’s precisely at such times, when emotions tend toward the operatic, that people seek the common cadences of life. That’s one of the lessons I learned from my mother, years ago, as she was dying.

We knew my mother’s time was short ”“ the doctors spoke in terms of months. Early on, while she could still go about the business of daily living, she was determined to do just that. She insisted on doing the laundry, for instance, which entailed numerous trips back and forth to the basement. Yet when I offered to help, she refused any assistance. To her, laundry signified the comfort of familiar routines. That she could still cart the clothes and manage the stairs meant that she was still in the game.

And who were we to argue?

Then there was the matter of ice cream. One night my mother wanted peppermint stick from a particular shop, and I dared to propose an alternative. Selfishly I was thinking of spending time together ”“ not squandering it, driving farther for a particular food.

In the end, my mother had her ice cream and ate it, too. Nor was her point lost: Sometimes small incidentals trump loftier motives.

One afternoon, a cousin came by to visit. My mother had been looking through a stack of mail when she happened upon a flier from the supermarket. This, in turn, led to a conversation about the rising price of produce.

Later, as my cousin was leaving, she remarked privately that she couldn’t imagine how my mother, only weeks from death, could be interested in the cost of cantaloupe. I laughed and assured her that it was exactly the conversation my mother wanted. It was further proof that the engines of domestic life were in working order.

Looking back, I think about my mother’s final months and her defiance about the ordinary details of living. True, a terminal illness changes the rules: A dying person, when able, calls the shots; the rest of us merely observe. The ordinary and the extraordinary mingle in ways that are, at times, surreal and hard to fathom.

My family was going through both the worst and most ordinary of human events. If it was in some way extraordinary, it was because my mother knew better.

— Joan Silverman is a writer in Kennebunk. This article originally appeared, in slightly different form, in The Maine Sunday Telegram.