I’m sat in my mother’s flat. She’s sat opposite me playing contentedly with a packet of Extra Strong Mints, one of the dozens of packets I’ve found in drawers, tins, Tupperware and her many handbags. I’m sorting through piles and piles of junk mail and actually really important mail, discarded equally across the rooms. A little transistor radio she found and that I put some batteries in is playing Classic FM. It takes the edge off the tragedy.
As I sift through another pile of Damart catalogues, charity begging letters, bank statements and urgent hospital requests, The Lark Ascending spills forth from the tiny radio, filling the room with its uniquely joyful poignancy. I am flooded with memories of my late father and his love for me and music. My copy was a gift from him. And I cannot listen to it without crying, its sense of loss echoing my own.
And so it is that I cry tears for one lost parent and the sheer beauty of Vaughan Williams' music in front of the other, lost to dementia. My mother looks at me quizzically. ‘I can’t listen to this music without crying,’ I explain, ‘It’s too beautiful.’ She laughs a gentle laugh and smiles at me, not understanding my tears. I go back to sorting the dusty piles of paper.
