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Friday, December 16, 2011

Christopher Hitchens death: In Memoriam, my courageous sibling, by Peter Hitchens | Mail Online

Excerpt: [h/t Books, Inq.]
[Respectfully: I ask that you pray for his soul and for his grieving family.]
Loss: Peter Hitchens, right, describes his relationship with his late brother Christopher, left, as 'complex' but adds the pair got on better in the last few months than they had in 50 years
[Loss: Peter Hitchens, right, describes his relationship with his late brother Christopher, left, as 'complex' but adds the pair got on better in the last few months than they had in 50 years]
And I have spent most of the day so far responding, with regrettable brevity, to the many kind and thoughtful expressions of sympathy that I have received, some from complete strangers. 
Many more such messages are arriving as comments here. My thanks for all of them. They are much appreciated not only by me but by my brother’s family.
...............
Much of civilisation rests on the proper response to death, simple unalloyed kindness, the desire to show sympathy for irrecoverable loss, the understanding that a unique and irreplaceable something has been lost to us. If we ceased to care, we wouldn’t be properly human.
So, odd as it would be if this were a wholly private matter, I think it would be strange if I did not post something here, partly to thank the many who have sent their kind wishes and expressed their sympathy, and partly to provide my first raw attempt at a eulogy for my closest living relative, someone who in many ways I have known better – and certainly longer - than anyone else alive.
Brotherly love: Peter, left, and Christopher, right, play in the sand during a holiday in Devon in the fifties
Brotherly love: Peter, left, and Christopher, right, play in the sand during a holiday in Devon in the fifties

It is certainly raw. Last week I saw my brother for the last time in a fairly grim hospital room in Houston, Texas. He was in great pain, and suffering in several other ways I will not describe. But he was wholly conscious and in command of his wits, and able to speak clearly.

We both knew it was the last time we would see each other...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2075133/Christopher-Hitchens-death-In-Memoriam-courageous-sibling-Peter-Hitchens.html#ixzz1gkfCJwdc




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