In this conference conversation, Lisa Appignanesi reads from her recently published memoir Everyday Madness: On Grief, Anger, Loss and Love, written after the death of her husband, the historian John Forrester. In the memoir she attempts to understand the grieving process and the rage that overtook her after his death. In conversation with the editor of the BJP, she comments on the symbolic import of ‘last words’, illness and death as forms of contagion, the nature of the caring relationship, and the way in which the dead inhabit us. The conversation moves on to the way in which her grandson's presence enables her gradually to move away from her rage, along with the birth of a second grandson - the arrival of new life. Comments from the floor, focusing on the nature of care, follow.