I remember you 2

I've been plunged into a somewhat sombre mood this morning, with the news of the death of John's brother, Andrew.

Ok, his death - sooner rather than later - was expected, and his family's fight for funds to help find a cure for the condition which caused it would never have been timely enough to affect this particular outcome, but it is almost crass to say that it doesn't make it any the less devastating for his family. Sometimes the sheer inevitability makes events like this even sadder.

We all know that - statistically - our parents will probably die earlier than us, but when they do die, and someone asks how old they were, if you say "84" (as I did when a colleague asked about my father) and they say, "Oh, well he had a long life then - stop making a fuss" (as this colleague actually did say - not even imply, and I was merely answering his question!), I wonder if they know how offensive and inappropriate that is. Equally, I find any suggestion that a death is 'a blessed relief' for anyone - nomatter what the circumstances - just as offensive, even if it is said in complete ignorance.

Shortly after my father died, my sister telephoned me in a blind panic. I asked what the matter was, and she said to me that no matter how hard she tried, she could not remember what our parents looked like without looking at photos, even though one of them had only been dead for a week or two. I could hear the panic in her voice.

I told her not to worry, as this was a well documented reaction to the death of a loved one, and that crystal clear recollection of the faces of those who could not be forgotten would return in a month or so, without resorting to family photos. Of course, they did.

Funnily enough, last night my father visited me in a dream. He had bought a nasty, Chinese jade brooch of an elephant for H.I. and had pinned it onto her dress, accidentally pinning it through her skin at the same time. H.I. did not want to seem ungrateful, but whispered to me what he had done through gritted teeth, begging me to unpin it as quickly as possible.

I can see him sitting quietly there now, unaware of his geriatric mistake and beaming with satisfaction at his gift, and how clever he was to choose it for her.