"P.... has died"

the clan chief informs me in a phone call yesterday.

P... was the Senior Cat's cousin - my first cousin once removed. There is just one member of that generation now living, a cousin in his late 80's. P...was 93.

I liked P...  He was a very likeable man, a man people describe as a "gentleman". He was the MC for the second clan reunion and had everyone aware of the importance of such events and the rather extraordinary relationship between us all. 

He lived in another state, about as far away as is possible and I only saw him twice after that. The first time his wife came too. N was the one who showed me the easy way to dice a mango but N... was diagnosed with Alzheimer's not long after that. P.... visited her every day in the nursing home when he could no longer care for her at home. He was that sort of person.

He came back here once after that but it was a "farewell" sort of visit. P... would phone me occasionally to inquire after the Senior Cat and it was always a pleasure to talk to him, to find out what his family was doing. I was never sure how he had grown up to be so normal when his mother was one of the strangest and most scatty people I have ever known. Perhaps it was because she was, in her own way, also a lovely person? 

Later in the afternoon I was clearing a file of the Senior Cat's papers and I came across a photograph. There was P... and N... and the Senior Cat  - and me. We are standing on the docks and smiling. It was the last trip they made here. It was possibly my uncle who took the photo because my mother was not alive. I looked at it. Three of them gone. Photos are such strange things. They bring back memories but they are static in themselves.

I put it to one side. It is the sort of thing I don't think we can throw away.