Just is not enough

I couldn't write about this yesterday, I needed longer to process it before the words could take shape in any form close to right. Blip has slowly become one of the wonderful ways I remember those I lose, a chance to record forever a sense of them and the love they've left in the world.
A chance encounter with a friend's wife yesterday left us both in tears. Steve D who was probably the only person I remained friends with from the long lonely years running the business passed away last September at 61. I'd known he was seriously ill, I managed to see him last March and August, but he was still hoping to be accepted for a lung transplant. Sadly that never happened and in his wife's words "the fight left him and he just faded away"
I went for a long wander with a happy puppy, sat a longer while thinking of our conversation; his wife had thought I'd have heard via social media, people couldn't attend a funeral so there was never a service to go to. But when he slipped away I was fighting my own battle with covid - social media's moment heavy algorithm stealing that news away too.

I thought on the words and the stories to bring Steve back into life and focus and I couldn't get past the truth that he was just a good good man. And that should never ever be underestimated in it's worth - there should be no "just" in that sentence. He was fantastically, wonderfully, simply a good man, always with a smile, always there with a shoulder -  and that's much much more than enough. There don't need to be heroics or famous achievements; if we could all ever hope be remembered as 'just' a good man (or woman) then the world would be a better place.

Gone far far too early, never forgotten.