ABSTRACT
The year 1984 found me sixty years old and a widower, but with Sarah still living at home, both at the London flat and in Frilsham on weekends. That helped greatly to soften my grief and mitigate my loneliness. So did the letters that flowed in for several months as the news of Caroline's death percolated to friends around the world. For many weeks almost every moment of spare time was occupied in answering them, and I realized for the first time how important a part of mourning is achieved by the largely repetitive act of responding to the sympathy of all sorts of people, some of them the merest acquaintances who had remembered something about her that they admired. “How nice Caroline was, intelligent and brave.” “What courage and intellectual vigour Caroline has had, continuing from her couch to participate in this world much more than most of us do on our feet.” “Our memories of her will be of laughter and of her particularly lovely voice, talking with so much animation and understanding both about people and things. She simply radiated vitality and hope.” “Une rare qualitÉ morale, dont le contact enrichit le coeur, donnant si gÉnÉreusement son amitiÉ, et attirant l'amitiÉ” (A rare moral quality, contact with which cheers the heart, radiating friendship and attracting it in return). “When I first came to America and the children were at their most difficult, I took heart from the thought that I could write to Caroline, and she would see the funny side. There was no one else I could write to in the same vein.” “Et lux perpetua luceat eis (And may light eternal shine upon them), but Caroline had quite a lot of light on her when she was still alive.”
