I remember him well. Of course I do. How could I ever forget him? When I think of Peter, I remember his family - and ours - together, having fun. I remember afternoons in his garden, playing with the children, watching them take turns on the swing, watching his girls push our daughter round the lawn in a pram, taking them to the park on bikes and tricycles, listening to his jokes and silliness. I remember their three year old daughter, Katy, helping herself to more ice-cream out of the freezer and her father abandoning his customary genial approach to fatherhood and daring her, in his most severe voice, to continue in her naughtiness. Of course she responded to the dare, as children do, by following through and being appropriately punished! But Peter was a master of silliness at its best - a loveable clown - but maybe also at its worst! Peter was special and no-one can replace him.
When I remember Cherry I think of her laugh, a light, silvery laugh that carried with it a sense of lightheartedness and such joy. I remember the folk music; I think of the fuschias that she loved and collected in her conservatory; I remember the jewellery she made; I remember her wedding. Growing older and iller, her jewellery making was one of the things that still inspired her to creativity and enabled her to indulge her favourite pastime of giving and making people happy. These were my friends and I shall never see them again. They are both gone and it is still a shock to think that those happy times are over. A part of me is gone too.
When people die you miss them. It's true. Everyone knows that. There are l0l reasons why you miss them. Sometimes you see people who remind you of someone you've lost and it starts all over again: the memories, the things you did together, the way they looked, the way they dressed... But I made a strange discovery the other day. When people that you love die a part of you dies too! I didn't know that.
'There are many rooms and many Bernards.' I read that the other day and it made me think. I'm reading The Waves* at the moment, by Virginia Woolf, in which she explores, in a mixture of lyrical prose poetry and musings, the inner thoughts and imagination of six childhood friends as they grow up. The characters come together and separate, merge together, flow into one another and regard each other closely, imagining each other's thoughts and desires. They miss each other when they are no longer there. Bernard is a writer whose whole life is composed of 'making phrases', phrases for every situation, phrases that as a writer he may need to use later. With his stock of phrases, he makes stories - the whole of life is a series of stories - and what he needs more than anything else is someone to listen. So Bernard is a people person. He craves human contact, but for each situation, each room full of people, for each listener, there is another Bernard. When Percival dies, Bernard loses that part of himself that used to relate to his friend. When Percival dies Bernard mourns Percival, but he also mourns the passing of a part of himself.
I have just a handful of friends and family who have passed away and left one of those gaping holes. I'm not old enough yet to have that many. But thinking of the times you shared together you remember former days and a former you. That 'you' will never come again. Not quite. Because we're never quite the same person again; the person who made you feel that way and act that way is no longer there. So thank you, friends and family, for making me what I am and for inspiring a tiny part of me that can never be the same again without you!
* The Waves, Virginia Woolf. Pub. Vintage, 2004
