Tuesday, August 30

Today Auo would have been 15 years old. Yesterday evening Irma gave me a card she had bought and asked me to write something in it from both of us. I didn’t find it easy. I had bought two Lego mini-figures, which she used to take a gleefully childish delight in. It was something we had in common, and just the act of buying them made me close to her for a while.

Irma is working from home today so I got up quietly and placed the card and the packets of Lego at her place on the table. Irma was up and we hugged before I left.

I spent the day doing more preparation work. I also had a tutorial with Irene who has an interesting thesis project. We just need to make sure that it gets done. I also walked to the shops with Jutta and bought a mango and chilli Greek-style yogurt, that was an interesting taste.

Naa was home when I arrived. I am looking at some flowers that Naa has bought for Auo. They are next to some flowers that Irma bought for Auo. We are talking about how difficult it is to know what to do about her birthday in the sense that we are celebrating to keep her alive for us, knowing that if she was alive for us then she would be very different than the twelve year old we remember. We will sit and eat cake. I have bought two Lego minifigures, which she loved in a deliberately childish way, and Naa and I make them. They are not very interesting.

Irma will make posts on Facebook, with a collection of photos. I will post replies and comments. I will say “Life would be better if Auo was actually here celebrating her birthday. Certainly for her, since there were lots of things she was loudly looking forward to doing as she got older, but also for us, because we were all looking forward to her doing them.

But the boat sails on and the voyage continues, and we have our memories of the time she was with us. It’s not enough, not by a long way, but it’s not nothing.”

We will fall asleep sad, or at least subdued.