Author: Duncan Spence

One of the last duties my father felt necessary to perform in this life was to ensure I knew the tragic circumstances my mother had endured as a girl, before she and my father were married while she was still living at home as a student.

Continue reading “The wee small hours”

Ever since the diagnosis, it has been impossible not to make sense of every twinge, minor pain or anomalous experience as possibly related to the disease. It is a continuous struggle; try as I might, until there is evidence supplied to the contrary, in the worst recesses of my imagination everything is always related to the cancer.

Continue reading “A false alarm”

He used to visit when my mother was alive but she shooed him away, not because she did not like cats, but because she was scared she might trip over him. After she died, every time I came to the house he would visit. By the time I moved in, he seemed to have already decided that this was where he wanted to be. I reopened the old cat flap so he could come and go as he pleased. Every time I came home from one of my adventures or from working in the city, he would be close by, waiting for my return with long stories and much purring. Continue reading “Letting go”