Life

I am in contemplative mood. Thinking about life and how precious it is, following the sudden death of a man who worked in the pub - Simon. He was 43 years old, a father of two children, and yesterday, he keeled over and died of a massive heart attack (at least that's what they think, not that it matters, because he is dead).

My immediate reaction to this sort of thing is to grab a drink (Simon would have approved, he was not averse to alcohol) and toast to Simon's life, delaying the resolution to give up alcohol immediately. If that happened to Simon, it could happen to me, ergo, live life to the full. Enjoy every moment.

Toast to the fact he was one of those 'salt of the earth' types.

I was just getting to know him, having quite disliked him initially. My dislike was based on hearsay mainly, village gossip and a few racist remarks he had made. Of course, he was not perfect.

But when I got to know him as a work colleague, my opinion changed entirely. (Ah, the danger of making hasty judgements about people).

We are all devastated, those who worked with him, who chatted to him as he smoked outside, who sat with him in comfortable silence. He was a man of few words, happy with his own company, but also happy to be amongst others. I expect he was listening carefully, taking it all in. A friend of mine, who loved Simon very much, summed him up in one word: 'tender'. I believe she was right.

He was an extremely clever man. Not in the 'traditional' way - rumour had it he was illiterate. But in matters practical, he was a frigging genuis, the handiest person you could meet, with the mind of an engineer. In the pub, he was always the Mr Fix It.

Garbage disposal clogged up. "Simon, can you sort this out?" And he did, no fuss, just got on with it.
"Simon, how do I change this barrel?" He showed you, patiently.

We sat around like zombies yesterday, thinking of this man, who had lived in the village all his relatively short life, whom some might regard as a 'nobody' (whatever that means?) and we missed him. His sister came to arrange the wake. She reckoned three hundred people would turn up. If only Simon could know how many people cared about him, respected him, want to pay homage to him.

Maybe he does.