I arrived home after my walk today to a missed call on my mobile and the message light blinking from the landline. Looking up the number I recognised it belonged to MrS’s cousin. Oh that’s nice I thought, she must be coming to visit her friend and wants to  drop in on her way.

And so we listened to the message.

She’s dead.

I can’t really take it in. Whilst she was (so hard to write) in her seventies, retired,  a grandmother she was by no means old. And not ill. She was always full of life, walking travelling, keeping up with family and friends.  Both her parents lived into their nineties.

Now she’s gone.

It’ll be worse for MrS;  the cousins are the senior generation of his family. A chain of births stretching from the ’40s to the ’60s.  And now a link is gone.

We’ll talk about it later no doubt.  Remember.

But for now there is just shock.

And sadness.