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Good morning. My earliest childhood memory is witnessing my mother - suffering post-natal iron deficiency - suddenly faint - with her face falling onto a hearth full of hot embers and dying flames.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Unsurprisingly, I have never lost a fear of fire.

Which of us who witnessed the Bradford stadium inferno on this day in 1985 can remember that dreadful event without pain?

For most of the football fans there it began so differently: the exuberance of comradeship on the way to the match; and ended with the shock of grief.

In recent months, my family has lost a beloved member to sudden, accidental death. Today's anniversary brings that grief vividly to mind; and those I have ministered to who have lost loved ones suddenly or violently. Their words almost always spoken as memories of the last encounter with their lost beloved are shared never leave me: "if only I had known this was to be the last time, I would have said so much more"… " I would have gone beyond reticence and reserve"… " I would have let them know just how much I loved them."

As a Catholic, I was taught to pray for a "happy death" and ask for the prayers of St Joseph, patron saint of the dying. My grandparents had a "happy death Crucifix" over their bed. As a child I found these practices strange and a little discomforting: how could death ever be "happy"?

Now as an adult, I think I'm getting it. These were not macabre fixations but an acknowledgement of a reality of life: that we shall all touch loss one day; a prayer that love may be expressed; the unsaid, spoken; and that hearts heavy with loss may receive healing and peace.

Lord of the living and of the dead, may all these prayers be granted to us; and on this day to those whose hearts know grief.  Amen