ABSTRACT
The opening sentence of Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina rings unquestionably true for anyone who has experienced the death of someone they love. Every bereaved family has its own particular circumstances which make its experience of death unique. All families are complicated and death throws a spotlight on the complexities. This was one of the things I learnt after my father died: death did not tidy up things, it did not suddenly make everyone behave like angels, it just made them behave even more like themselves than usual. Death did not solve the problems, it highlighted them. Even if outwardly a family appears conventional enough, behind closed doors there is no such thing as a conventional family: All families are made up of individuals and will themselves be individual in one way or another.
