Sometimes The Most shocking Is The Most Surprising

Death has no respect. Death is indiscriminate; Be you good or evil, rich or poor it strikes with the same venom and finality. It never ceases to moralise the person it strikes, it just takes with no judgement. It is harder when it takes without warning. This situation has impacted on my life three times, so far. All significant for different reasons and discovered in different ways, and now thinking of them, all happened to be men. The reason I am writing this is that one happened yesterday, to someone I had only known for four years through running club, and who, seemingly as fit as a butchers dog to my knowledge and who I have run and chatted with often, spoke of life, children, retirement, etc. The stuff you talk to friends about. It really is a hammer blow that evacuates the wind from your lungs when you find out that they will no longer be there, anymore. The next time I go to running club, he will not be there, there will be a person shaped hole where once he ran, never to be filled. And it is the suddenness that increases the impact of that hammer blow. I drove past him last week, while he was gardening and I was campaigning. Strangely I felt that I should have pulled over and quickly said 'hi', which I usually did when I saw him, but today I was in a rush and the thought was removed by the knowledge that I would see him when I got back into running club. And now I won't, and I wish I had. That is the hardest part of sudden departures, you have never had the opportunity to say goodbye.

My Grandfather died on a street in Mansfield. Alone and undoubtedly terrified of what was happening and completely unexpected. I still remember the game I was playing on my play station, when my mother came in, full of tears and broke 'the news', (tomb raider 2). I was 24 at the time, yet at that moment I was an ageless grandson without a grandfather. A bond had been ripped from me and was never to be repaired. The pain has never healed, but merely been numbed by time to a point when there is guilt when you remember you haven't thought of him for a while. It was the suddenness that hurt the most because I never got the time to say goodbye. That only happened when I saw his body, dressed for the funeral, lying within the coffin at the funeral parlour. It is hard to say goodbye to someone who appears to only be sleeping. Without a shadow of a doubt that was the hardest thing I have ever experienced. Now I have had children I very occasionally wonder whether I have a right to ban them from viewing my dressed cadaver, when the time comes. The sadness is that I think of these things already.

The third event occured at University when I was studying as an undergraduate and within our year group, which was not large, as classics is wildly unpopular, was a former accountant, who had worked all his life and retired at 60 and had decided to get his degree in classics and it had always been a passion of his and he was a good scholar. We worked pretty close for three years and I often found myself guiding him through Roman Art and we often ended up on the same seminar groups. Where surrounded by vibrant, naive 18year olds he dispensed the wisdom accrued from a lifetime of work and effort and inspired us to try and put as much effort into our studies that he did. Yet, it was only two years later when I was reading my 'Pegasus' magazine, the classics department magizine to which I subscribe, when a few pages in there was an article about Nick, written by his wife, explaining his sudden death only 2 years after graduating with us, and how he had managed to see himself achieve a life ambition in gaining his degree. And how he would have thanked all the staff and students who worked with him through those three years in the mid-nineties. Again, it was a case of reading the article over and over again, just to ensure that you have read it correctly and it was the truth. The suddenness, again, taking your emotions by surprise leaves you reeling as the memories in all these cases, at least the last one is knowing that they were fine and full of strength. And the next news of them is that, that strength has been stolen.

So, as I say a small prayer for his family. I shall pour myself a small bourbon and raise my glass to these three and thank them for all they bought into my life, in varying degrees of times and attention but all had a positive impact. Salute, Douglas, Nick and Brian!