No need for reply dearest Richard – it is me that needs to write. I think about death quite a lot. Since being with my much adored mother through her death – life changed for me. Before reading your post I saw a woman I know a little this morning. Our eyes met and in her smile I saw a host of intimacies. Love and desire offer such possibilities which most of the time remain unspoken, unacted. People look at each other all the time and a myriad of silent thoughts animate each person, sometimes in parallel, sometimes horribly mistaken. Love and sex, the unbelievable urgency of birth and death. I wish you well in this affair you are conducting and – like those others who love you – respect your journey so far. I’m being selfish writing this to you – vicarious – but I will or our eyes won’t have met. xxx