Mortality

I'm feeling a little down tonight. Late last week I got the news that someone I've been professionally associated with for some time was quite ill and in hospital and not expected to last much longer.

I won't name him here as it's not appropriate, but suffice it to say I consider him a friend and a thoroughly decent chap.

For the past few days I've been mulling over whether I should visit him or not. Like I say we know each other, but it's a relationship based on a professional acquaintance and I was a little unsure if it would have been appropriate to intrude at a time best reserved for family and close friends.

Well tonight I visited him .... I'm glad I did but it's highlighted just how patently unfair life can be at times.

Here is a man, who's liked and respected by all that know him, left a shadow of his former self in a hospital bed. One of my colleagues gave a very apt description of him the other day.
"He's a gentleman, but more importantly he's a gentle man".
And that's the honest truth. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met in my line of work and genuinely nice people are few and far between in political circles.

For him to be in this truly awful predicament, well ...it's just not right.

He's barely had time to come to terms with his illness and now he's got just days left. He doesn't want to die, nor do any of us who know him want to lose him, but there's nothing he, or any of us, can do.

What can you say or do for someone in such a situation?

Absolutely nothing - and that's the worst thing about it all.