Photo credit: Tom Rausing
I went to a funeral the other day, deep in the English countryside. We traveled down on the empty local train, the London contingent sitting together, more or less. The church was packed, the coffin — plain pine, decorated with now somewhat wilted flowers — stood to the side. My friend, the father of the boy who had died (he seemed to me still a boy, though in truth of course he was not) stood up to speak. His voice broke only twice; he stood like a general in a war, unflinching. The references to addiction were so subtle you might have missed them, but the Serenity Prayer was in the service, and a track by Talking Heads, reminding us of how young the boy had been, and how young we once were...