To remember

• Miss Four first thing in the morning, with tousled hair and sleepy eyes and soft skin that smells like cotton sheets. She reaches for me and hugs me and kisses my cheek and says ‘morning mummy’

• Master Seven at school drop off turning to me for a hug and a kiss ‘bye bye love you’ he says a few times before turning to walk into the school gate. Then he shouts it one last time, not a care in the world for who is listening or watching ‘bye bye love you!’

• Master Nine and the way he sits when he reads. The way he reads when he eats breakfast at the kitchen bench. The way he reads in the car. The way we have to remind him not to read when he is walking.