The other day, I received a message telling me a former colleague of mine had died. It was not an entire surprise: my colleague had been struggling with a degenerative condition for quite some time. Still: knowing someone is seriously ill and may die is not the same as them dying. My former colleague was […]
I have previously written about Eleanor of Castile, but in that post I focussed on the children she birthed. And lost. She lost most of them, unfortunate woman that she was. This post is about her last few years—mainly because that’s where I’ve been spending time with her, as my latest novel is set 1287-1290,
A slow march into permanent night – of a queen’s death Read More »
A recent survey here in Sweden has concluded that a majority of Swedish people feel we should spread the ashes of those that have died in the great outdoors. A gust of wind and what little remains of a human after cremation would soar upwards, spread and eventually settle back on the ground. No need,
It was just a matter of time – we all knew that. But that doesn’t help She was old – very old, even. But that doesn’t help She said she was ready to go – life, as she saw it, was done. But that doesn’t help The phone call that jerked us awake yesterday was
Some people would argue that humanity’s defining characteristic is our intelligence. Hmm. Given our predilection for constantly endangering the future of our species through war, pollution and excessive exploitation of this our very precious, very small, green planet, I am not so sure about all that intelligence. Others will say it is our communication skills
Several years ago, when I was still a child, my single greatest fear wasn’t that I was going to die – it was that my mother would. At the time, I was young enough to consider myself more or less immortal – life extended before me as an endless sea. But I was old enough
There is something strange in our relationship with love stories. While most of us hope for that happy ending, the stories we remember are the ones that end in tears and loss, such as that of Juliet and her Romeo. Even weirder, we will sit in our sofas and snivel as we watch – yet
Unfortunately, there’s no “if” about dying – it’s just a matter of when. And if you think about it, is the alternative all that palatable? Does anyone truly want to go on living and living while the creases and wrinkles deepen, the eyesight weakens and the joints swell up with arthritis? Or maybe we’re all