A bench facing the water

For as long as his children could remember, their father walked the same stretch of seafront every morning, before the day began. When he died, that walk was the thing they kept coming back to. It was where he was most himself.

The trouble was distance. The family had moved on, scattered between cities and countries, and the seafront was a long way from any of them.

They told us what they pictured: a bench, facing the water, on the stretch he loved. We found out who looks after the front, found the right office to ask, and connected them with the people who place the benches there. The family chose the spot and the words. The rest fell into place.

"There is a bench facing the water where Dad walked every morning. We were all there the day it went in, three generations of us."

It is not a grave they feel they ought to visit. It is a spot they want to. Every time one of them is back, they sit a while, and he is there.