For Harry & Henrietta...

This is a special pace for me it brings me solace and peace but I struggled today... Today the shot and not much else really seems to matter.

Today my heart is breaking, yesterday morning my friend dad who I mentioned in What's the Forecast passed away.  He had been ravaged by cancers and when a further diagnosis was made about a month ago he decided that he could no longer face the rigours of treatment which would only have given him a little more time.  He lost his wife a little over six months ago and to be honest I think that day he lost the will to live without her.  I was sad to hear  of Harry’s passing and man I had known all of my life, a neighbour of my beloved grandparents when I was young, and that is how his daughter and I met as infants and so started a lifelong friendship.

My best man, my best friend, sent me a text this afternoon, his baby daughter passed away, losing her struggle with the health challenges she had been born with. I was dumbstruck, lost for words and totally and utterly devastated.  I sat at my office desk and just stared into space, I am not sure how much time passed before I phoned my wife and my mum to break this gut wrenching news. The man who stood beside me and I beside him on our wedding days, whose son is my godson and whose parents loved me like another son sounded like the lost boy.  I cry for my friend, for their pain, for their loss and for their grief.  I cry for myself for I need the release but in truth perhaps more in relief that the suffering is over.

Today I have questioned why these things happen, why my friends have to suffer so… me, well I usually retreat to music at such times but tonight I cannot settle but with the shot the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson just seemed right…
 
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Tell those you care about what they mean to you and that you love them, if you can wrap them in your arms just because you can…