Essentially this blog is about love. My eternal love for Jacob,Rosie,Florence and John. But for me, it is also about death .I wouldn’t be writing it if Rosie hadn’t died.The ‘D’ word is a tricky one. I’ve found people don’t like using it -I can’t say I relish it . But personally I cannot cope with ‘lost’ or passed on .( Again – I an NOT speaking for anyone else ) For me, they do not soften the blow , they just make it more woolly . Death is real , final, and in Rosie’s case untimely, wrong and sad. I continue to be drawn to words about young people who have died. They fly out of newspapers, magazines and books right into my face. I am often bowled over by the wisdom and poignancy in these words and continue to have a feeling of deep ( irrational ) protection towards the young person who has died.
On Saturday ,I read what the actor Paul Bettany had written about the sudden death of his eight year old brother , when he was sixteen .
‘His death has had a profound effect on how I am as a parent, in good and bad ways. In the playground I am a neurotic parent. I really have to fight that instinct to surround them in bubble wrap and put a helmet on them. But there is a huge gift to come from it as well in that, yes, life is fragile – and, yes, we are in a precarious situation – but it is also spectacularly precious. It’s hard to say and take out of the context of my life and see it objectively, but I feel that it has informed the level of my concentration on my children and my concentration on the present and their childhood.’
I feel that – except substitute The playground for The Night Bus ( or similar ).