Mixed Emotions

You're not the only one
With mixed emotions
You're not the only ship

Adrift on this ocean 

Just how I was feeling on Friday, full of mixed emotions. In the morning Julia and I attended the funeral of the 22 year old son of a friend of ours. He had been tragically killed in a car accident. The funerals of young people are always so sad, it seems such a tragic loss. The church was full and the service was very moving. Julia helped welcome the congregation into the church and I was helping as an altar server. Having a role to play certainly helps on occasions such as this. You feel so vulnerable and pray that something like this does not happen to your own children. At 22 you feel invulnerable, sadly this is not the case.

In the late afternoon and evening we met up with old friends from college. We meet up a few times each year, usually for lunch. This time the morning funeral meant we had to delay the proceedings. There used to be six of us, Martin and Maureen, John and Maria (best man and bridesmaid at our wedding) and Julia and I. We had all been to college together and have kept the friendship up for some 40 years. 

It was the first time that we had met since Maureen, who was the wife of Martin, had died. It was good for us all to meet again; we were joined by another Julia, the widow of an old college friend of ours, Stuart. Julia lived close to the pub where we met at Chobham and it was good to see her again. What could have been a mournful occasion was full of laughter and happy memories. It certainly lifted my spirits as we reminisced about our college days, our families and looked forward to the future. We even fixed a date for our next meeting, July 4 when we shall celebrate losing our American friends; they never could make a decent cup of tea!

Maria, Julia, Julia, Martin, Barry, John

One thing that we all agreed on, do not put off doing things that you really want to do. You never know what is around the corner and life is too short to have regrets.

Live in the present tense, facing the duty at hand without regret for the past or worry over the future.