My mother never made it to 50. She was 44 when she came home from a day of shopping in Stevenage town centre, went to sleep on the floor, and died. Her death was sudden. She didn’t leave a will – but she did leave a wish. She wanted to be buried in Barbados, the island of her birth, “not this cold place”. I was 19, my brothers 24 and 23. None of us had proper jobs or any money – but once we realised we had access to sufficient funds, we made it happen.

The Guardian has today published my last despatch from Muncie, Indiana from where I covered the US presidential elections. The article, which you can find online here, or in today’s print edition, is a long read that tries to pull together the things that I saw over the month that I was tin the city that relate to the broader national picture. You can read an excerpt below.

In 1924, Robert and Helen Lynd, a husband-and-wife team of researchers, travelled from New York City into the heart of the midwest to undertake a study of daily life in an ordinary American town, Muncie, Indiana. The Lynds approached their mission in much the same spirit that Joseph Conrad entered the Heart of Darkness – to look upon denizens of middle America as an anthropologist might chronicle the strange customs of another race.

Most pundits said they wouldn’t do it; most pollsters insisted they couldn’t do it; everyone from the pope to Beyoncé said they shouldn’t do it. Now it’s done.

Today’s the day. For many I’ve spoken to during my month-long stay in Muncie, Indiana, it couldn’t have come too soon. First impressions are often inaccurate. But I stand by my initial view that a significant section of folk here are embarrassed by this election. There are, I am well aware, people who are enthusiastic about both candidates. I’ve seen them on television at rallies. But then that’s what rallies are for. In my time here I have met very few who are enthusiastic about either but many who loathe one or the other.

Just a week to go. The overwhelming sense I get from people here in Muncie is that they just want it to be over. Their impatience isn’t just election fatigue – it’s feels like a kind of nervous exhaustion brought on by the clear fragility of the whole enterprise formerly known as American democracy. But the other thing that’s happened, since the email leaks on Friday, is that Democrat supporters are abandoning the notion that Hillary Clinton’s victory will be a formality and are now trying to get their heads around the possibility of a Trump victory.

As Bea Sousa went to cast her vote early at Muncie’s courthouse a couple weeks ago, the historic symbolism of the moment crept up on her unawares. She paused to take it in.