Sublime

the terror of being left to survive without him.

bearing

If we as adults can understand these unconscious changes, we can practise noticing when we are not grounded.

There’d been nothing in our house that we’d had just because my mum liked it; nothing that stood as a memento of her human life, her life in Malaysia. Everything was about convenience, not her taste or personality.

It is problematic to father alone. By this I do not mean without a wife. That can actually be simpler, finer. A single authority, a clear chain of command. None of the agonies of partnered power, although I’m confident that Claire will soon join me here at the hut. Instead I mean it is difficult to father without an actual child. How exactly does o

doggedness

She needed someone who might quiet the shrieking wean, who might help her resurface after she was hit with the waves of her grief.

This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.

The vic’s home is your shot at getting a handle on this person you’re never going to meet. Even for their friends, people filter and spin, and then the friends filter all over again: they don’t want to speak ill of the dead, or they’re feeling maudlin about their poor lost pal, or they don’t want you to misunderstand that little quirk of his. But b