saying goodbye is never easy..

I have not had a good month really with meeting my friend that is dying, and now is in a hospice as her days draw to a close, getting her pain managed has been a true struggle.. and then speaking to a friend in Spain just before she went in for a throat operation, only to hear after a successful operation, that she had died of a massive heart attack a couple of days later.. I was thinking ' who will be next'** Well, I got that answer on Thursday last week when I spoke to my brother in the South of France where he lives. He was very down as his best friend who had known since they married best friends almost fifty years ago, and was like his brother, had lost his fight with the cancer. I met Gerard over the years and a kinder more clever and humble person I have yet to meet. He had two children, one of whom, Pierre died of a brain cancer when he was eleven. As the same year of his birth both my brother and I had sons , they were all of the same age, so again, we suffered his loss together. It is true what they say about the good dying young.. this seems to be happening at the moment to my circle of friends. It is not the worst year of loss, that happened when I lost family and friends and included my own parents, my losses counted up to 13 in 13 months, ending with my father. I guess knowing it is coming to be the time when we should realise that three score and ten was the allotted time, and to live past this date is a plus, but not a given! Mortality is a strange word isnt it.. we sort of know what it means and know of other people dying young, but somehow it only feels like its anything close to us when we get so much older. As young people we believe that the whole world is full of opportunities and adventures and our lives seem to have no end. Now, I know that I am unlikely to see another 30 years and notice all too clearly how fast the weeks fly by! Once, a year took sooo long to get through, now it passes in a flash. My friend who is dying, is hanging on in there.. she was very poorly earlier this week and has been transferred to a Hospice for pain management and infection control. She is now very confused but stable and had a reasonable night last night.. I just spoke to her husband who is coping amazingly, but boy is he on some journey with her. She has always been the one with the funny quip but now she is trying to stay alive and not a lot of space for jokes at the moment. Outside my window the sun is shining, and I and John my husband are going to a Wedding this afternoon. The girl is from his Firm, and qualified with them as an Accountant, and will be marrying for the second time. She has been on her own a long while and her son is now 12, but its great that she is being given another chance to spend her days with a caring husband. I am so looking forward to catching up with the other Partners from his Accountancy Practice. When John founded it all of almost thirty years ago, it was just him and a few book keepers.. now it has several partners and John is retained as a consultant. He works two days a week, and finds it plenty to keep him satisfied and brain working.. He is the Tax specialist in the Firm. Weddings are so lovely because of all the hope they represent, and its a happy time to catch up with friends and families, not a sad occasion like funerals. Funerals however are becoming more and more commanplace now.. and I remember my parents saying they were going to at least four a month!! I hope I dont lose my friends that fast, and I would love to hope that one day I will meet them all again.. which is why, even if they are buried, its only Au Revoir, because we will be together all again one day.. That I do hang on to, the thought that nothing is really ended, and so goodbyes are not necessary**