I started writing this post about 6 weeks ago to reflect on the deaths of 5 friends last year. Since then it's become 6 friends- some I've known for many years, some I met this year. I don't know what to write. I want to find the beauty in the ashes but I can't. The beauty in each of their lives is easy to see- I've sat through the funerals filled with tales of love and humour and joy- but their deaths are all just tragic. I still hang on to hope and I believe that good and beautiful things may well start to grow from what is now just ashes. And they will be great stories of resilience and triumph. But they will be despite the ashes not because of them. We often hear talk of people going to a better place and the hope of heaven. And that provides some comfort but if heaven is eternal then it can jolly well wait a little longer as far as I'm concerned. I take nothing for granted any more but I am blessed with the very real possibility that I could see my kids gro
