Today has been a full on day. It started with emptying Mrs O’s mum’s effects from her room at the care home. It seemed rather weird given that we rolled up in the same car that I used to take her in on that dreadfully wet December evening. All she had with her that night were the clothes she was in but today we filled the car with bin-bags of clothes and effects from the small wardrobe and drawers.

We went home via the tip to dispose of clothes that could not reasonably be given to charity but before I went I had to take some pictures. I would have when we went to see her body but I deferred. I think many photographers feel compelled to record these fleeting moments but maybe feel that it is not the done thing. I could not have left without a record being made.

These three pictures somehow sum up the trace, and that is all it is that was left of her in that room. It was as empty as the day I saw it when Mrs O asked me to check it out after she had done the rounds of assessments two and a half years ago.

These were snapped on a phone very much as I did the last time I saw her alive but somehow these three images with the dust, a hair, the note for the ring to be collected and the collection note for the clothes she grew out of were all that was left of her presence in that room. She was well gone from the scene when we saw her within an hour of her passing.

Then it was on to the funeral directors and the florist.

Almost everything organised now.