The Robin's dance.

Is there anything more desolate than the death of a loved one? What comes near to describing the pit of grief and the wretchedness of despair? How to describe the indescribable. How to put into words the abject misery of it all? Perhaps Auden's poem comes close. How to deal with the symbols that are left behind: the toothbrush, still in the rack; the coat hanging by the kitchen door; the unfinished book by the bedside. The robin that once, to the delight of two, skipped in and out of the holly bush, now knowingly hops a solitary jig. Nothing is ever the same. Grief, bereavement, anger and pain, nothing can ever be the same. The agonising memory of the final battle in a hospital bed. And, afer the end has come the next day, more symbols. Belongings handed back in a black, plastic dustbin liner. A bin liner? Surely not? Not in the world's finest health service? Not in the caring NHS. Oh, yes. In the NHS; a service populated by people who care more about caring than care itself. A bin liner full of night-clothes, a hair brush, some slippers, a dressing gown, half-used toiletries, yesterday's newspaper, a wrist-watch, a ring, a necklace, a few coins it's all there. The get-well cards, the unopened box of chocolates, the photograph in the tiny frame, the underwear, the street clothes. All of it, heaped in the black plastic bin liner.