The holes in our lives

On Thursday we said our final goodbyes to an amazing woman. As someone who's too lazy to be an atheist, I was initially wary about the vicars at my partner's church, but Jenny won me over the first time they had us over for dinner - telling me about her experiences nursing in some of the poorest parts of urban South Africa, finishing up with "and that's when I became a socialist." I was so embarassed to have someone who has done so much for so many people, not least in the local community of St Peters, tell me that my day job was really important. Amazing doesn't even begin to cover it, really.

So we have another hole in our life. It's not just the people we lose, as adults, it's also the people who have been so important to Wriggly, who have loved him so much, and who he'll not remember when he's grown. To lose them from our lives, from his life, to be left with only some photos and some stories we can tell him, seems so cruel.

And again I'm left raging against cancer, that hateful disease. Deaths leave grief, and while the edges of the holes grow less ragged with time, they never heal up entirely. I didn't really understand that until my father died; that sense of waking up every morning and having that moment of hope before you remember. At least my son is spared that for now.