Kelly

 

You’ve been gone ten years, and you’ve missed a lot of stuff that would have made you very angry. The far right is encroaching everywhere, and politics is a water-tension membrane over deep savagery and corruption. Bigotry and bullying are rife, and we’ve all had to stay in-doors for two years. Not that you’d have minded that. When you were out you were properly out, but you’d have preferred to stay in.

A decade is an eternity, and the world has felt your loss these past ten years. Everything got meaner and colder.  Coincidence, or something more sinister?

I miss you. I miss the flip-top of your head when you laughed, your kicky legs. I miss your always being right, your unerring moral compass, your unfailing generosity. You were an amazing person, Kelly. I loved you very much.

I’ll be traveling up the Duff tomorrow with Biddy, to attend mass and visit the grave, and hopefully spend some time with Hugh and Kate (I haven’t seen them for the best part of two years, because of the whole Covid thing…actually, you don’t need to know about that). It’ll be good to see them. I’m always wary of being a harbinger: every time I hove into view it’s a reminder that the worst days on the calendar are approaching. But, if that’s the case, they betray no sign of it. They are as lovely as ever. Easy to see where you got it from.

 

Ten years. Ridiculous.