Fragile

So I find one of the plants in the front garden encased in ice, looking as green as the first shoots of spring. Usually my first thought would be 'wow' or 'I have never seen that before'. However thanks to this website my first thought was 'camera, blip'. So here it is, no touching up or any other photoshop based shenanigans. Nope this is how it looks in my front yard. I had to veer back towards the stereotypical cold weather blip as the shot presented itself. I know it has a resemblence to the defining body part of the male, but I ignored that.

I got a sharp warning as to how fragile life is last night. Yesterday morning near Goole my Step brothers Dad, Keith, was taking his taxi out to Goole to collect a fare when he hit a patch of black ice and skidded into the path of an oncoming lorry. Tragically he lost his life in his mid fifties..... the same age as my Dad. I wasn't close to him, hadn't spoken in maybe eight years but back when we were kids him and his wife then (my Dads wife now) were best friends with my Mum and Dad. Obviously a lot had happened but during childhood he was for a long while a large-ish part of my life. It's not a 'sorry to hear' that moment for me because he is someone I knew but didn't relate to anymore. However my step brother Shaun and of course Dad and Mo (my Dads wife and Keiths ex wife) are devastated. It'll be another emotionally charged funeral in the coming weeks, sadly just like last Christmas. Keith was the same age as my Dad, similar age to my Mum. I feellike life is getting to that point where this sort of loss will get more regular.

It just hit home to me how much of a gift life is, and how really every opportunity needs to be cherished and relished. I'm often guilty of wallowing in my own made up self pity or looking backwards and not forwards, and then something like this happens and everything stops for a day or two. Then its back to the norm and I know that despite the feelings of realisation now in a weeks time that clarity will ahve been clouded over by the same everyday problems that seem to dog us 'does she like me', 'can I afford to go out', etc etc etc blah blah blah.

So today no self pitying, no wallowing in what 'might have been' and no cheap jokes or mindless rants.

KEITH REESON - RIP

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