I really can't add any fresh opinions to what's already been said, but I would like to express my thanks to those with a different view to my own - Nan, Sheila and a few others - for explaining their views and feelings on the matter so clearly. I really do feel I've reached a new understanding by reading what you had to say on the subject - that is to say, I appreciate the true depth and strength of your feelings. So thanks. smile

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'll ever truly understand the nature of those feelings, because I think I'm just wired so differently. The nearest I got was a wonderfully romantic film I once watched, where right at the end, in the last few frames, they killed off the hero. I could have punched a hole in the TV, I was so frustrated. I'd invested a lot of emotional energy in that guy, embraced his melancholy and his slightly whimsical lifestyle, watched with rising hope as he met and seemed to get his girl, and then sat on the edge of my seat when he got into a perilous situation, knowing full-well that he'd survive, because the hero always does, except...he didn't. Argh! But even then, I was only highly frustrated, not deeply upset. In fact, the film clearly didn't have *that* big an impact on me, because about two years later, I mistakenly rented it again and got exactly the same nasty surprise at the end. Duh.

I think the other thing to be learnt from this thread is just how many of us have been touched by death. You really don't get to live very long on this earth before you're confronted by it, and I suspect even those who haven't alluded to a personal experience on this thread have been through some pretty harrowing times with loved ones. What's interesting (and 'interesting' isn't a good word choice, but I'm stuck for a better one) is that there are probably as many different ways of dealing with bereavement as there are people who've been bereaved. Writing about death, therefore, is a difficult and sensitive business.

Yvonne