My no longer poorly friend

Readers of this blog will know that for the last year or so, I have been holding the hand of a friend and lover, whilst waiting for him to be ready to die.

At 5.33am on Saturday morning he was found to be dead, by a nurse who two hours earlier had checked on him, found him to be drinking Lucozade (a 'healthy' drink) and making jokes.

I am enormously proud of him.

In the last year of his life he:

(i) clung to life with a tenacity that defied medical opinion

(ii) reconciled himself to those that mattered to him

(iii) allowed those to whom he mattered to engage

That's quite a lot to do in your final year when you are not yet fifty.

As I cuddled his mortal remains at lunchtime on Saturday, I really did know what love is.

Thank you Nick. It's been a privilege.

Life is simple

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/22/monsignor-meth-kevin-wallin-the-kinky-priest-who-sold-meth.html

http://gawker.com/5978198/naked-florida-man-jumps-off-roof-onto-man-knocks-television-over-empties-vacuum-cleaner-masturbates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvpNF633fJc

Searching

As an adopted child, the search for a birth mother never quite leaves, however much one might pretend otherwise.

Shortly after my fiftieth birthday, I embarked on that search and, several months later, it has reached a conclusion.

According to the documents, my birth mother and father "went about together" in County Longford, Ireland during the summer of 1961 and, as a consequence, I was born in May 1962.

He being of the Roman Catholic faith, and she being Church of Ireland, marriage was apparently "out of the question" and so (fill in the gaps) I became a Coram Foundling.

Of late much Googling has been done and I have discovered many facts.

The pertinent news this week is that my birth mother died in 2002.

My search for her is over.

I am both saddened and gladdened by this news.