Anna - just re-reading through all the thoughts this morning! Still so proud to have been your friend. You trod gently in this world but just look at the impact you had!
I know this compliment (truth) would, at one time, have caused your cheeks to glow with self-effacing embarrassment, but I'm hoping you have long since realised your worth and your positive contribution while in this world. Thank you Anna - always remembered.
Dan
11th February 2024
Tomorrow, the first day of another year without you, I will begin my 8th decade. How I wish you were here to share this milestone, to open one of your carefully chosen cards, maybe even a special well chosen book. For me the future holds only the inevitable fact that I’m getting closer to finding you again. Maybe then I will be able to understand why.
Mum x
31st December 2023
Conversations about conversations. For you? To you? Either would seem, at best, unlikely. For me? Of course yes, though, to one or two others as well, I hope. And you deserve some thoughts, though this doesn’t say much. Thoughts and words (thoughts and prayers, the last, the first refuge of the morally evasive), public thoughts. More selfishness. Ritual is its own reward, flowers on a grave, songs on an anniversary, the re-reads, when we dare. This makes me miss you, that’s what’s left, moments put off, memories dodged, perhaps saved, and then the usual sense of you is concentrated. Like a drink, like liquor, can we do that? Into the cold, into that imagined outside. Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink anymore. I miss you, my friend, that's it really.
24th December 2023