Week 7

I received the saddest news this week of the death of my lifelong friend, Jan Leary. ‘Friend’ really doesn’t do our relationship justice, for Jan, who was like a second mother to me, has been part of my family and my life for the past forty-five years. She taught me to drive when no one else could—or would, since I was so bad at it! She made my teenage years bearable. She nursed my stepfather through his final illness. She nursed my mother through hers. I loved her dearly.

It almost feels as if history is repeating itself, for whilst he was writing installments of The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins lost his mother. He was bereft, but managed to keep on writing, as will I.

Janet Elaine Jewel Leary, you extraordinary person, thank you for always being there for me. I will miss you always. I already do.

Jan and I, April 1964.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Workers on the Silent Highway by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.