Life and death, near and far

This week Hayley recounted a tale to me about her late brother Paul. One day when arguing with his mother he grew tired of being told how grateful he should be for the privations she underwent to bring him up. "I didn't ask to be born!" he snapped. This earned him a thick ear (though he was about 21 at the time)!

It set me to thinking about the mixed blessing of being born into this world without a choice. I remember a friend many years ago telling me how devastated he was when he discovered at the age of 5 that one day he would die. It's a delicate question to handle. As I lay in the bath this morning I found myself wondering how I am going to tell Oliver about it.

But of course he is very lucky to be born into a society that is affluent and benevolent by global standards and into a family who love him. Watching the TV this week, the colossal devastation caused by the earthquake in Pakistan is a stark reminder that many children grow up in less hospitable surroundings and in greater danger from natural disasters. The scale of the tragedy is almost too much to take in and has come at a time when starvation in Malawi should be making the news pages but has been pushed into the background (or more accurately completely off the pages) of the newspapers and media websites.

Then as I lay in the bath listening to the radio my thoughts turned to the danger from human sources. "From Our Own Correspondent" on Radio 4 this morning told how a man drove up into the hills in the aftermath of the earthquake and set up food kitchens and tents for 1200 people. He simply felt it was the right thing to do: his Islamic duty. But a local Mullah had different ideas. It was Ramadan and by preparing the food and the fires to cook it in daylight he incurred the wrath of the Mullah who threatened to burn down all his tents!

The programme also told of the forgotten Iranian villages who suffered chemical attacks at the hands of Saddam Hussein. I could hardly imagine the horror of the women and children dying together from chemical attack in the shrine where they were worshipping. But that was the reality back in 1988, while today the survivors are so ill that they think of the dead as the lucky ones.

So I feel blessed to live in a country and time where my son can have great opportunities to live a long, rich and rewarding life.

And yet even here life comes with no guarantees. On Monday I went to work quite upbeat. I went to see a colleague but found that he wasn’t in. I thought no more of it until later in the day I was told that he was absent because his daughter had died.

She suffered from fits and earlier this year he ran the London Marathon to raise money for the David Lewis Centre who support sufferers of complex epilepsy. As well being a much respected colleague he is also a fellow cyclist who I enjoyed introducing to the delights of the Peak District trails around Castleton last year. I still find it hard to comprehend the scale of the grief he must be feeling or what he must be going through. It's hard even to find words for how I felt when I heard the news. To put it bluntly, no parent should have to bury their child. The void left behind must be immense.

So all these sombre thoughts have made me feel grateful beyond words for all that I have right now. It's easy to focus on sleepless nights and the ups and downs of the daily grind, but it shouldn't distract me from the fact that right now I am blessed beyond words to have the family I always wanted. Every day is a blessing, so no matter how bleary eyed I get I plan to seize it.