Diary of a Dissenter: A Week From My Window

'I can feel the knuckles of my ancestors pushing into the small of my back.'

So Long, Marian . . .

It's time that we began

To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again       

—  Leonard Cohen

MONDAY

My sister Marian died shortly after midnight. I got the message early this morning, from several quarters. She had been ill for 18 months but I had not seen her in that time, due to the circumstances we have all been in. 

She wa…