a different world

Today was the installation of our new college chaplain, and this brought people out of the woodwork to the service - I hope Anthony's not expecting a full chapel every week! I found out that some lovely people from our senior common room who I'd sort of expected to see at last week's leaving do for Duncan (I can't call him the 'old' one, I've only just got used to calling him the new chaplain) were missing because Mike's son has finally -after an excruciatingly long and painful two years- passed away. For all the time he's been sick Mike has been beating himself up for being the one who brought asbestos home. I know I've struggled this year to help mum cope, and deal with my own pain, but at least I'm experiencing the natural flow of life. Burying your children isn't right, and that doesn't matter whether they're babes in arms or thirty- or even forty-somethings. But we live in a different world now - you can't blame yourselves for not being aware of the risks of asbestos just as you cannot look back and judge our parents for letting us get sunburnt. There will be parents out there who are burying offspring lost from skin cancer feeling just the same as Mike. It's candlemas; if you're lighting candles this weekend, please light one for a tortured body now at peace, and a tortured soul far from it.