Day 43 of the 100 day project.
The thirteenth of May. Had he lived, my father would have been eighty four today. His illness and decline were so important to my experience of the garden that I shall talk a bit about that today. We gave him a splendid eightieth birthday. My mother had died quite without warning from a heart attack six months earlier and the village hall had been full of people for her funeral wanting to share their memories of her. It might sound odd that we had his birthday party in the same place but it felt very right. Lots of the same people were there and, although my mother's funeral had had its odd surprising moments of joy, the shock of her death was overwhelming and full of pain and it felt good to have some more simple moments of pleasure in that friendly community place. My sister had pulled all the stops out to get everyone there who my dad wanted to see: all the children, with their husbands and wives, most of the grandchildren, now adult so some with...