We sit by the disused railway tracks, abandoned only a few years ago to the weeds and wild flowers that quickly squatted there in the absence of disruption. The lazy heat of the setting sun bathes us; the early evening sky is freckled with white cloud. I can hear birds singing and the rustling of the tall grass behind where we sit.

There is more chatter than last year, the air of grief has subsided, and I expect that next year our heads will be higher, wounds having healed, leaving scars instead. Someone has brought music here, a voice filled with gravel singing about a local boy in a photograph.

And now the flowers have been laid out again on the railway banks, slowly dying and I think of you, your absence making your presence stronger. We will sit here and toast you, toast your life and never your death.