I talked to an 18 year old girl yesterday who knew him. They had been friends as children. She said that they weren’t random gang members arguing with police but Seydou’s brother and some of his friends trying to get to him. She said that as far as she was aware he wasn’t in a gang, but was stabbed for the goods he had just bought from the shop.

But the worst thing about our modern day media and the spin we are given is that she was telling me that a lot of Youtube footage of him dying has been uploaded. Some of it has people laughing at what was happening. This is what is disgusting. This is what shouldn’t be allowed. His Facebook page is full of comments about how can people laugh at somebody’s dying expense and what is more, how can it be allowed to be shown? Surely, although I guess it’s very difficult to monitor reality and some would argue that they have a right to become Citizen journalist and post what they want – but mocking and laughing? Surely something should be done about that.

Every so often – and usually when I am in need of a reminder as to why I blog (LIKE RIGHT NOW) a comment arrives that blows me away. Something profound in some way shape or form. From somebody going through a trauma of some description (usually divorce or separation) who has found something that I have written to be helpful.

I’m going to reprint her words here because it hit a raw nerve for me – about why I write, but actually the quote from Rilke rings true for many of us who are looking and searching for advice and answers at the moment (I think Lady GaGa might have this quote tattooed on her forearm – which presumably wasn’t the name of her dead cat). All too often (and it took me a very long time to understand this) you know the answers yourself. You know what you want and what you have to do. Look into yourself. You are the one who knows you best. Follow your instincts. Sit. Be quiet. Find a place for a moment to sort out what your priorities are. What you are prepared to put up with. What is unacceptable. Find. Your. Own. Peace. Respect yourself and your decisions and whilst things won’t necessarily be easier you will be stronger. Sorry, sermon over – here is what she said:-

“I want to thank you for your blogs. I am early in the process of my divorce, and though the decision to divorce was mine, and I do not regret it, it makes the road ahead no easier. In fact, as the instigator, I am an easy target, and subject of speculation. I refuse to explain the reasons for my decision to others, because doing so would dishonour my children’s father, and is unlikely to truly convince anyone anyhow. If my reasons are valid and true, I expect time will reveal them to others as well – small consolation right now, though.

I needed Anne Hill’s advice – I had felt crazy, and much of it (too much) was already very true. I do need to get up every day and face my dragons as my pyjamas and reasons not to shower first thing in the day on the days I’m not working has become more and more appealing – though harder and harder to justify. And your other blogs, which I have only just discovered, provide much therapeutic relief and cathartic laughter.…things that may not always seem funny, but ring so true, you just have to laugh –relieved I am not the first to have thought the same things.

As to your brother’s mentioning that your blogs have been a bit dull lately (a statement that, as a newly single mother of an 11 and 14 year old, I wholly disagree with), I thought of Rilke, and his advice in “Letters to a Young Poet”–advice I think applies to more than just writing:

“You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must”, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

This is an awful time for opinions and advice-giving–as though there is a right way to go about divorce, or as though anyone but you knows what it is like to be you. But I suspect, that like me, you feel the urge to write it out just the same–that just speaking it is cathartic and makes you feel less insane…For myself, I recently chose a confidant to whom I have expressed these fears and feelings. Unfortunately, my newfound confidant, despite their care and concern for me, is not as fond of verbal expression, and my long heart cries often elicit blunt one liners–many of which do not even touch the heart of the matter. There is a need to be heard, to be understood–I do not want advice, but then I Google “how to survive divorce”. I do not feel the least bit sociable, but then cling to the first person to share genuine care and concern. I am a living anomaly, and do not know how to go about this new life, almost frozen into inaction with fear, while my two children look to me for direction and strength…

Okay, I digress. All to say, thank you, and please, don’t give up blogging”.

Thank you lovely anonymous stranger for your comment. I wish you well in your journey. It is most certainly reassuring to know there are a lot of us out there each searching for answers.

Seeing the names of so many dead is incredibly moving. It is a peaceful place for family, friends and visitors to simply pay their respects and mourn the dead. What a tragic image of the father falling to his knees after finding his son’s name that went viral on Sunday. It simply stated everything that is so tragic about war and attacks and unnecessary killings and premature death. Simply a parent suffering because the loss of a child:-

Here you can see the new building rising out of the ashes to become the new 1 World Trade Centre:-

The biggest flag in history added for the 10 year anniversary service:-

and the memorial en route:-

“May we never forget”:-

I didn’t get any close up photos of the memorial waterfall itself. Security was too tight and there were too many people. It was the first day it was open to the public and you needed a pass. Most of the public were family members that day:-

My mother is not coping massively well on her own. She’s bored and lonely understandably, so we are hatching a plan to move her closer to us. I’ve got estate agent details to take her and we will try and instill a sense of enthusiasm and hope in her for a different future. She mostly says now “I was just lucky to have been with my soulmate for 47 years, just lucky to have laughed every day of my life with him” and she’s right. But now, we have to try and edge her slowly towards a different future – out of one life and into another.

Appropriately, in my “Buddhist Offerings 365 days” today’s entry for the 21st August is this:-

“Daring to live means daring to die at any moment but also means daring to be born, crossing great stages of life in which the person we have been dies, and is replaced by another with a renewed vision of the world, and at the same time realising that there will be many obstacles to overcome before we reach the final stage of Enlightenment”

Shocking and tragic and such a stupid waste of a young life. Every parents worst nightmare.

Our children could of course have been there. It could have been them. Or could it? Would my daughter and her friends take an unknown substance stolen from the house? Would they have been at an unsupervised party where there was no adult even at 4am when the ambulance was finally called? I don’t know the details as to why the parents weren’t there – perhaps they didn’t know it was happening, but no doubt those kids would have been scared when she was clearly not well and some disappeared and others no doubt panicked. Perhaps if an ambulance had been called earlier things would have been different. Teenagers do not expect somebody to die at a party. They wouldn’t have known what to do. Wouldn’t have read the signs.

To what extent should a 15 year old be taking responsibility for their own actions ? How much trust and space are we supposed to give them at this delicate age and stage? There will always be the ones who go that step too far and take a dangerous cocktail of drugs but are we as their parents culpable and responsible? Is it any worse now than it was then? We had drugs available. Drink. Excessive behaviour. I do think our modern London teenagers have more of a free reign than most – and to be honest cult programmes like “Skins” won’t have helped at all. They grow up so quickly and they are certainly exposed to drugs and alcohol at an early stage.

Of course as parents we are all dealing with the same issues – “Why don’t you trust me?” “WHY do you have to speak to their parents, nobody else’s parents do that, it’s SO unfair/embarrassing/annoying/humiliating……” but what else can we do? I know a bit from watching my son go through it – the plans to find out who’s house is empty for the night/weekend, where they are going for their “pre-lash”, what drugs might or might not be available, what they are drinking, but generally, as parents, even if we have a good communication with our children, what do we really know about what they’re getting up to? Is that scary or is that normal? My parents didn’t know what I was getting up to, not all the time anyway.

It’s even worse as a single parent. The kids can use the fact they’ve got two separate parents to their advantage – all we can do is continue to liaise in matters of where they’re going to be and when and keep our fingers crossed.

What a nightmare for everybody concerned. So so sad.

My poor mother has lost her younger brother and now has the unenviable task of having to tell her mother (my 95 year old grandmother) that her youngest child has died. How terrible to have to tell a mother about the death of her child, no matter what age they are. She was very close to him and although they lived far apart she talked both to him and about him often.

Her extraordinary legacy lives on. “Be happy now” she said in the post she wanted us to read once she had gone, “because today is all you have”. “Be good to each other” because “life is too short to spend it hurting people and holding on to anger we have for those around us”.

As a mother, I cannot imagine her pain in having to leave her children behind. “My children will move mountains” she said today and I am quite sure they will.

I was a little freaked because it turned out that she died about 20 minutes after I had posted my last blog about death and it wasn’t something we knew was going to happen. I told my father that I had just written about a beautiful piece of writing on death and about how you “stand on the shoulders” of those that come before you. He said “if I’d stood on my mother’s shoulders I’d only have been two inches taller and I would have probably fallen off and broken the other arm”.

I feel truly privileged to have been part of her life and extremely lucky to have had her around until now. How lovely for my children to have had a Great Grandmother they will always remember.