My father died years ago, and I have lost grandparents and aunts and uncles – but losing the only other member of the family who went to the same primary school as me and with whom I shared the back seat of the Austin Maxi and argued over the Kellogg’s variety pack on day one of every holiday was something new and dreadful.
In the days that followed, I was overwhelmed by one notion: that someone ought to tell Millie she was dead – she didn’t see this coming either – and that the someone ought to be me.
One memory I hope I never lose is of her blazing her way through Katy Perry’s Roar at a children’s party, madly choreographing all the kids.
Millie is gone; my father has been dead many years; and my mother’s memory is cruelly abandoning her.
As Millie’s death graduated from a “shock” to a “thing”, I began to realise just how much I had always relied on her version of events.
