"When my niece Adrienne died, my Dad - her grandfather - was very upset. The death was not unexpected. She had brain cancer, and we all knew from the start it was terminal. Yet Dad had been so ill for so long and I think he had expected he would die first. Losing your child, your grand-child, reverses the norm. Barely six weeks later he was also dead, and less than a year after that, my mother.

"I remember when my sister first got the news from her husband and began the scramble to get home to America. When her flight was announced - the first 'plane they could put her on, and that only after tears and argument - she ran down the corridor pushing her trolley before her and I ran behind her until I realised that I was alone and forgotten. And I fully understood why.

"Now, seven years later, longer than we had expected, and less than we had hoped for, I was walking into Sheila's house in Dover, New Hampshire, knowing I had crossed the Atlantic to say goodbye to a dearly-loved niece. My first sight of her was like a kick in the guts. I recoiled, and had to re-enter, and I was able to do so only by taking a few deep breaths and pinning a smile on my face. When had Adrienne disappeared and this gaunt skeleton taken her place? The Adrienne I knew had honey-gold skin; bright hair, a ready smile and a rapier wit. This Adrienne, though only twenty-nine, was emaciated, sallow, semi-paralysed. Her only spoken language now was Oh God Oh God and No no no.

"Soon I discovered that beneath the disguise the essential Adrienne still lived and breathed and had her being. It was a consolation to discover how difficult it is to diminish or demolish the human spirit. That has been Adrienne's gift to me. Adrienne in her dying gave me the courage to face the great mysteries of Death. We could still communicate, and know each other. She liked to hold hands, and to listen to James Herriot's Yorkshire animal stories.

"We all had to be strong, and it was my sister's anguish, not Adrienne's fragility, that threatened to destroy me. When I tried to hold and comfort her she was stiff and rigid, armed and armoured against fear, loss, pain and disbelief. Against a hope that defied reason, but withered rapidly before rationale. We talked, and I came to understand that Sheila's greatest fear was the manner of Adrienne's dying. After three operations, Adrienne had opted for the red wristband that signalled Do Not Resuscitate to paramedics and surgical teams

"Sheila was terrified that each crisis, each trauma, would be followed by a recovery but with Adrienne left weaker, more damaged, closer to a final destruction and with a hard death still to come. This was what she feared for her child, and she literally could not bear it except by closing down on all comfort, on any focus except the beloved. Nothing could help her, neither her husband nor myself, her other children, nor faith itself. All she could see was Adrienne's end and the manner of it. Nothing else had meaning for her.

"A couple of days before I was due to leave for home, I had a dream. Out of a blue blue sky a single white feather began to fall drifting gently down while I strained to see it. Slowly, slowly, it grew, changing shape, gaining definition until the single feather was an angel in white silk with downy wings and a strong, tranquil face. Slowly he moved forward and slowly stepped over the window sill and into the house. Slowly he bent down and lifted Adrienne up in his strong arms, and slowly and silently he bore her away.

"Soon after I returned to London, my sister rang up and told us that Adrienne had died, and the manner of her dying.

"Sheila and her husband had been taking it in turns to sleep in Adrienne's room so that she was never alone. She had been in a coma for some time. Sheila woke suddenly at five a.m. to find Adrienne wide-awake and with her big dark eyes fixed warmly and intently upon her mother. Sheila did something she hadn't done for a long time. She climbed into bed and took her daughter into her arms. For a short while they lay together, totally at peace, Adrienne half-smiling. Then she let out one, two, little breaths, and died.


"I believe that dream-angel was a harbinger, a messenger from God. I don't fully understand why he came to me, not Sheila. Perhaps she had to close down to survive, and he couldn't get through. We have all had to come to terms with Adrienne's death, especially her parents and her brother and sister. We have been helped by the manner of her dying."