Ever since my wife rang me at work just before lunch to tell me one of her aunts had been killed in a car accident earlier this morning. She was particularly close to this aunt and so was shattered when she found out and when she called me, although she’s held things together pretty well since then, by keeping busy … I think it’ll hit harder when she stops. I’ve felt numb, sick in the guts, and my throat has felt all dry and scratchy all afternoon.

Until today, I’d never known anyone who’d died in a car crash. In fact my experience of people dying has been very limited - 3 out of 4 grandparents had died before I was born and the last grandmother passed away when I was a small child. My parents are still alive, and the only relatives to have died have been a few old and reasonably distant ones. Prior to now the hardest hit I’ve felt is years ago at the funeral of a friend’s younger brother who had taken his own life. Sudden death I think is harder to deal with, younger people even more so. Its scary thinking how someone’s life can be snuffed out in an instant, and the lives of their family and friends turned on its head just like that.