Not too long ago, I woke at 5am to one of those messages you never want to receive from a family member: “Please call me as soon as you wake up.” I read the words again, slowly, and looked at the time stamp: 4am.

I knew immediately that something dreadful had happened. But I stayed still, trying to hold on to a few more minutes of that soft, dark, quiet place of ignorance, and said a few prayerful words asking for some strength and courage and calm. Then I called back, and learnt that just a few hours earlier, in the middle of the night, a relative’s house had caught fire. By the time I was hearing the news, it had burnt down. Thankfully everyone, including the dog, had got out.

In the hours that followed when I hung up the phone, as I waited for the light of day to creep slowly in and for the rest of the world to wake up, I sat quietly in my living room with my coffee. My mind in a bit of a fog, I looked around at the countless books, the small clay statue I bought in the medieval Italian town of Gubbio, the photographs of my mother and grandmother on the mantelpiece, the little antique side table I found and loved at first sight. Material possessions, but ones that symbolise the structure and meaning of our lives.