Guardian Life & Style (US) • Jan. 11, 2026, 12:15 p.m.

The snapshot was taken just months after I lost my mum, and not everyone in it is still with us. But it is an image of survival, capturing the aftermath of grief and the beforemath of future losses I remember the moment this photo was taken: five years ago, on my partner Claire’s birthday, in a National Trust for Scotland garden six miles east of Edinburgh.

We were standing on a wooden deck, an ideal spot for pond-dipping with the kids and a lesser-known viewing platform for trainspotters. This is where my autistic son, then six, loved (and still loves) to jump in tandem with the ScotRail trains toggling back and forth in the middle distance.

We had just eaten a small, hasty birthday picnic of pastries and Nosecco. We wandered down through the walled garden to the wild meadow encircling a pond.

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