I haven’t been looking for death themes, but I seem surrounded by books and movies this summer with messages for those left behind.

Unfinished Song: a five hanky movie with Vanessa Redgrave regally managing her last stages of a fatal illness, with Terence Stamp as the despairing husband.

Have You Seen Marie: Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street, creates a picture book for adults, as her heroine searches for her lost cat – a touching simile for her mother’s death.

Beautiful Day:  Although the focus is a wedding in Nantucket, Elin Hilderbrand’s summer romance novel uses the catalyst of the bride’s dead mother orchestrating the big day through a posthumous instruction book.