A garden sprang up in my house this month. Flowers of every colour mixed with the traditional white. A garden of love and sympathy.

There were words too. Awkward, loving words from those unsure of what to say. It’s not the words that count, I wanted to tell them. It’s that they’re there is all that matters.

There hasn’t been a garden like this one for more than twenty years. That garden was just as beautiful in its love and sympathy but it was tainted by feelings of horror and disbelief that these things should happen.

In this garden there was an understanding that this is the way of it. It is painful but it is as life is.

It’s gone now bar the stocky little daisies who like to hang about, sitting in a ceramic bowl that will remain as a keepsake from a friend’s loving gift.

“Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?” – Meg Ryan in ‘You’ve Got Mail’

And the words remain. The words will always remain.