Letter from the Highlands, March 2002
by Anne Perry

So far it has been an extraordinary month for weather. I don't know what has happened to winter. We've had the odd bit of cold, a frost now and then, and wind, but it is nothing like the dark and bitter season I had expected. I bought myself a lovely winter duvet, and have had to put it away—I was frying under it!

The woodland walk in the garden has sheets of snowdrops out—I picked a bunch on January 30^th, my mother's 90^th birthday. They are her favourite flowers—at least for this time of the year. Now there are crocuses out as well, a few daffodils and irises, and crazy wallflowers! They are not due until May—with the tulips. And some of the golden gorse is rich in the hedges as well.

We have had so many sparkling, brilliant days with blue sea and sky and crisp, cool air that smells of clean wind and endless spaces. I shall be gone all of March, and miss most of the daffodils, but I shall be home again for the tulips in May, the wild rhododendrons, the fields and hedgerows of gorse, and broom. It's a golden month.

In the meantime I am preparing to leave at the beginning of March, to do a book tour in America, and return in the first week of April—about five weeks away, including a few days with friends in New Jersey—to take a breather after all that travelling—and visit the New Jersey outlet shops! That is worth saving up for!

Because of that I will be very late with my next letter. I will not have the opportunity to write one or send one on the road. But if this trip is like all the others, I will meet many interesting and warm-hearted people, see any number of airport lounges, eat great meals and wonderful salads, sourdough bread which I love, and terrible ones in airports and fast food places grabbed between appointments!

I always get tense for a week or two before I go, a mixture of excitement and anxiety—who will I meet, what will I say, what will I see, learn, be able to convey to others? Will I stay well, remember everything I own and not leave anything behind in some hotel room, will I catch every flight, make every connection? Will they get my luggage to the right place at the right time? Will I arrive home exhausted—not having done my very best—and with all my belongings? Will I have remembered to get something nice for everyone?

More seriously, will everyone I leave behind be alright still? People and animals.

Before I go, will I have made all the necessary arrangements for everything to be taken care of while I'm gone—all the bills paid, insurances, letters.

I began this letter two days ago. So much has changed since then. Yesterday morning my mother had a very serious stroke. We took her immediately to the hospital, and spent most of the day there. In a little while I shall be returning, and my brother will arrive from his research trip to Cambridge this afternoon.

Mother had a wonderful ninetieth birthday party on January 30^th, and was enjoying life right until Saturday morning. Friday afternoon she had a friend to afternoon tea, and I called by and saw them laughing together. In the evening I telephoned her and we had a vivid and intellectual conversation.

Now I don't know whether she can hear us or not, but she cannot respond, and my prayer is that she may not linger in distress. I believe then when she is no longer with us physically, she will be with us in spirit in an even stronger way.

If you love someone, you should not wish to hinder their progress in the great journey from the pre-existence, through mortality and on into the resurrection. Whether we weep, and I do, it is for ourselves, our own loneliness in missing a lifelong friend.

But she will be the first to say 'stiff upper lip—and get on with your duty. Don't betray all I taught you by being less than the best you can—that is not what you are here for!'

This is a very short letter, and I hope you will excuse me for it. I had many other thoughts I intended to write, but they have all been pushed out of my head.

Next month I shall be on the road, I fully expect, so you will hear from me again in April.

God be with you—and with us all.

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