How do you describe people?

Yesterday I was back at my old university halls in Birmingham, UH, where we scattered some of Kev’s ashes in the garden. A couple of people spoke about him and H was able to come up with a few memories of Kev in UH that reminded that rest of us who’d lived with him of some happy, albeit random, times. Which sums up UH nicely too – happy but random. She picked out things that the rest of us had forgotten. It’s strange the things that you remember about people and the different things that people remember as important, but those anecdotes only add to the memories of Kev that I have, they don’t work as a whole description of the man.

Afterwards I went for a chat with L, after we’d wandered round UH trying to remember where the bar used to be and swapping memories of UH. She then asked me to describe my other half, and I was stumped. I couldn’t find a way to describe him that even began to cover it or that would make any sense to anyone other than me.

So how do you describe someone so that it actually reflects that person and that makes them sound as interesting to other people as they are to you? Or do you just have to resort to anecdotes, and hope that they’ll make sense if they ever actually meet the person you’re describing?