It’s taken me eighteen months, several hundred bottles of red wine, counselling, pills, the support of friends, strangers and a spirited editor at Virgin to try to articulate how it feels to have lost Mark.
It took my daughter thirty seconds, a cup of warm milk and an Oreo to sum it up last night :
I’ll admit it. Young children bore me. Up until they reach the age of about seven, I couldn’t be less fascinated by what they have to say. 
They undoubtedly feel the same way about me though, so I don’t feel too guilty about the admission.
(I refer to my child here, by the way. Yours might be the Stephen Fry of the playground, in which case I’d love to buy them a latte and have a chat.)
But is a five-year-old child capable of introspection?
Last night mine interrupted Masterchef to tell me she was going to the bathroom in order to have a think about Daddy.
“About who?” I asked, distracted by the pannecotta on the screen which looked indisputably like a breast with a huge nipple. (Greg’s grin when he saw it suggested he thought so too.)
“About our Daddy, what died,” she replied.
Off she tootled to the john and shut the door behind her.
She was in there a long while. After Greg had sampled the breast (predictably, he LAHVVED it), I knocked and opened the door.
“Get out!” she barked. “I want to be on my own so I can think.”
When she came out I asked her what she’d been contemplating.
“I was thinking about when Daddy died,” she replied.
“Oh. And did you feel happy when you thought about Daddy, or sad?”
“I felt happy and sad.”
Like Dianne Weist in Parenthood trying desperately to connect with her surly hormonal son, I found myself saying;
“I’m here if you want to talk. Or if not, talk to Mrs X at school. Or perhaps Mrs Y. Or Grandma! Or Aunt!”
She nodded at me like I was deranged, then asked for an Oreo.
Finally I find myself genuinely interested in something she has to say, but unlike her views on Barbie and the Secret Kingdom, she is suddenly unwilling to share.
Wife After Death 