Higher Order Aberrations | Hitchen's brother's eulogy, just posted on the DailyMail

Hitchen's brother's eulogy, just posted on the DailyMail

Peter Hitchens, conservative British columnist, is the polar opposite of his brother, Christopher. Peter has struggled for most of his adult life to escape the long dark shadow of his famous brother. Peter’s been quite successful. His “In Memoriam,” just posted on the Daily Mail, a conservative tab in the UK, is strikingly raw and unpolished - much unlike the majority of today’s obituaries.

Peter (as per usual) doesn’t hold his brother to pedestal. He doesn’t pay the typical high reverence to Hitch that mainstream writers have been doing today. True, Hitch commands, rather than deserves, their praises. Peter, on the other hand, writes with all of the confusion an that comes with loving a brother foremost, and jealously at least. Upon reflection of hearing the news on the radio, Peter wrote,

It is certainly raw. Last week I saw my brother for the last time in a fairly grim hospital room in Houston, Texas. He was in great pain, and suffering in several other ways I will not describe. But he was wholly conscious and in command of his wits, and able to speak clearly.

We both knew it was the last time we would see each other, though being Englishmen of a certain generation, neither of us would have dreamed of actually saying so.

Read “In Memoriam” here.