After a lifetime's independence– yes, selfish independence as my daughter would rightly claim – I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals.

I can only strive for what is important

I will continue my path, but I will keep a memory always.

Things don't matter, people do

Some things I can never forget. I must not. Otherwise what do I have left?

Death, when it's right there it doesn't seem too huge and terrible to let into your mind.

Christmas works like glue, it keeps us all sticking together.