De nobis fabula narratur (Their story is our story)

This past month has been one of celebration and of sorrow: celebration for us, with the advent of new clients, meaning that the barometer of our own lives has finally swung back round to ‘hopeful’ from ‘dismal’,  and sorrow for some whose lives have touched ours over the years.

In the arching span of a human existence, there are those whose lives kiss the pink of yours, gently, delicately, leaving the whisper of memories, those whose lives pot your black and careen yours off at a tangent and others whose dynamic rush and impact atomically fuse yours with theirs in a blaze of glory, never again to be unmelded. Our families, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, dealing with their lives and impacting on ours, however close or distant we are, have been or will become.

Confidence, knocked and battered by grave misfortune; a spate of accusations, groundless in truth but suspicious on the surface, almost destroying the strongest marital foundations I know, sudden and unexpected death, a devastating diagnosis. A debilitating injury; a parting of the ways. Unjust machinations by those put in place to help, but who manipulate facts, twist words and rend brutally asunder. The Boy and I,  we help where we can, practically, financially, or otherwise.  We lend an ear, we offer solace, tissues, a refuge.  We write letters, consoling, offering support, laying out the facts and putting things straight.  Sometimes, we just do nothing, because we can’t do anything. 

Everyone deals differently with the hand that that old bitch Fate sometimes deals us. In the last month,  I’ve read palliative paeans of exquisite prose for a beloved old life cut from existence by cruel disease, heard blistering invective heaped upon the Gods for misfortunes caused and circumstances suffered and seen oceans of tears wept for the loss of what was good, now gone bad.  I wait my turn on the Wheel of Fortune...