I have started talking to the dead. And it's strangely comforting

Of late I've been spending a lot of time talking to the dead.

- John Crace

Monday Or, to be more accurate, talking at them. The dead tend not to say much in reply. I haven't been seeing a medium. I find myself starting conversations with my Mum. Mostly the ones we never had or never finished. Not just the ones that her Alzheimer's prevented us from having but the ones that were too difficult for us both to have when she was neither anxious, disturbed or confused.

I'm not religious and I don't believe in life after death, but I would like to know that all was well between us. That we had said enough to one another to last an eternity as her ashes lie next to my Dad in a churchyard with breathtaking views of the South Downs. That she is now free of her illness and everything that troubled her.

My Mum's death has also bizarrely brought my Dad back to life in my mind. He has been dead for more than 25 years but I now chat to him regularly. Regretting that he has missed the best of me and my children. Regretting that he could never tell me about his experiences serving in the navy during the second world war. I often asked him while he was alive but he could never speak about it.

I also regularly chat to Herbie. Less so about the great existential questions. More about how I navigate my life on a daily basis. What to do, when to do it. Just like I used to do when he was alive. I trusted him and he trusted me. And oddly, he's the only one of the dead who ever talks back to me. In dogs I find salvation.