Watching a tribute to David Bowie reminded me of the emotional outpouring after his death. The remarks from various quarters summed up their (and my) sense of loss and bewilderment at his sudden departure from our lives. For those who had grown up with Bowie, we could not believe that he had gone. David Baddiel on Twitter wrote:

Feeling disorientated by Bowie’s death, like I’ve woken up and the world is out of joint. I think I assumed he was immortal.

Lauren Laverne summed up his loss beautifully for me.

When somebody dies you lose a world. You lose the way that they see the world. We lose their perspective.

And what a loss that is. What a waste to lose their humour, their individuality, their idiosyncratic window onto the world that once they shared with us.

Soon after losing David Bowie we lost Alan Rickman.

Evanna Lynch who played Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter recalls Rickman’s warmth and generosity in making time to speak to her to share his advice about acting. This is the advice he gave her, which she says is the loveliest she has ever received.

People think that they’re watching this, (he said waving his hand in front of his face) but really they’re watching this (and he pounded his fist on his heart centre).

Alan Rickman

Death is so painful because however prepared we may be (we all know we are mortal after all) it always feels sudden. It is a departure that is final. There is no coming back.

But writing a memoir changes that. It lets you go back, to relive and laugh with them, to get back into their world, the world that you thought was lost forever.

Immortality is possible through the written word, and perhaps that is what I had hoped to achieve through the writing of my book A Sweet Life, a memoir about my father. My book has brought him back to life for my children who had no recollection of him, and to other family members and friends who knew him and miss him. However, what I had not envisaged was that the book would connect readers to their own happy memories of loved ones who had passed on.

I think Alan Rickman’s advice carries over to writing as much as it does acting. People may think they are just reading a story, but if I have got it right, I will convey the heart of the man.

photo credit: Time to go home.. via photopin (license)