It was November 11 and Annette remembered Alan Bennett's words from The History Boys.

It is not 'Lest we Forget' but 'Lest we Remember'.

There were many things she longed to forget, and others she had no hope of remembering.

She wanted to forget the day the news had come from Jordan that her father, her daddy, had died.

She could not remember what had happened, because she wasn't there. She wasn't there. He had been alone.

Annette sighed, and stared straight ahead at the altar. She had not been in a church for years, not properly, only at Christmas. She had always stayed at home with her father, helping him finish supper, laying the table, sitting in front of the fire.

Now she was here, and his coffin was there, so smooth and shiny and black, so confusing.

How could he be just there, and yet not anywhere in this whole world?

Working for the government. Computers. Perfectly safe, everyone had said. Annette had activated alerts on her phone, to receive emails from the Foreign Office.

Always a general threat from terrorism, they had said.

"Don't go" she said to her father, but he would be back in four months, and everyone else had accepted it.

It was her brother's birthday the day she knew he was going for certain.

Blinking back tears, she watched the swashbuckler he had chosen. His jokes were painful tonight, ill-timed.

Her sister touched her shoulder, silent grief.

Mummy, looking haggard, wearing black, so helpless. How will we manage?

Lest we Forget.

She needed to forget him, the way he ran the comb through his hair, sat in silence composing jokes, the way he got emotional about classical music.

"This is..just..." he would say, listening to Maria Callas, bringing her to tears with that burning, unbearably warm and loving expression on his face.

Annette remembered the day she and her brother had gone to a pub, and when their father had walked away, taken turns to sip small amounts of beer from his drink. When he returned, he had two Cokes for them. Even now, with one look, they recalled the guilt of that day and squirmed. Their father had forgotten long ago, and laughed when she told him.

Threat of terrorism. But the end, when it came, was shocking. Brutal. So...normalised.

Stabbed in the street by a robber. Laptop taken. Left there to bleed out. When they got him to the hospital, they couldn't save him in time.

It could have happened anywhere. For all her fears, any trip to London could have ended the same way.

Annette choked. Suddenly her brother was there, holding her, guiding those sobs back into her body.

"Strong. Be strong today" he whispered. "You told me to make you."

Annette nodded and stood.

She walked to the altar, up the steps to the lectern.

The piano began, and she took a deep breath. Her last gift, one that her father would never hear.

She pictured his face, his soft, accepting face, his eternal youth. She had always been more serious, the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Annette began.

"God on high

Hear my prayer

In my need

You have always been there.

He is young

He's afraid

Let him rest

Heaven blessed.

She saw the faces of her family below her, echoing the same prayer, their expressions stark, ravaged.

Bring him home

Bring him home

Bring him home.

He's like the son I might have known

If God had granted me a son

The summers die

One by one

How soon they fly

On and on

And I am old

And will be gone.

Bring him peace

Bring him joy

He is young

He is only a boy

You can take

You can give

Let him be

Let him live

If I die, let me die

Let him live

Bring him home

Bring him home

Bring him home.

God could not answer the prayer for life, but he could rest now. Nothing could hurt him now. She remembered another song from Les Miserables, when Eponine is laid to rest by her unrequited love. The rain can't hurt me now.

She remembered the others, all those who had died for causes they believed in.

Lest we Forget.

She would remember him, always.