He's dead.

Cowgirls dad died.

I went into overload and wrote her a brilliant letter advising her of my wisdom on grief, and the best plan of action to cope. Luckily for her i started crying towards the end (thank God) and in what i consider a brilliant quirk of brain ordering, screwed it up and wrote a list of what i really wanted to say but couldn't:

I asked Xss the other day as we walked past the house where he and little Rich used to live* in Norwich, if he felt dead people somewhat remained in the places they used to live. He felt this was silly, and i guess rationally so do I. But i guess what i do want to believe is that somewhere in this world there is a special place that is anchored to the person who has died, because otherwise all is lost. The memories are starting to go, certainly the smells, their belongings, and the places the memories belong to are changing and the photos have a different hue. I'd like there to be one place where i know i could always find a closeness with my sister, but i guess it doesn't exist.

Some people would use the grave for this purpose, but that doesn't make sense to me. When we buried Rachael's ashes, the undertaker kept calling this random small wooden box 'Rachael' and i had to restrain myself from reminding him that actually i knew that the plain little box he held in his hands was certainly not my sister.

At the moment, i really feel like i have lost her.

LOST: No longer possessed or retained; no longer to be found; having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, direction; not used to good purpose, as opportunities, time, or labor; wasted: being something that someone has failed to win; ending in or attended with defeat; destroyed or ruined;

* Rich committed suicide in 2005 following a spell of mental illness.