22 April 2012
I was recently speaking to my Dad about people we knew and he spoke of a man he once knew called Steve. Steve had been a sergeant when my Dad became a police officer and had shown my Dad the ropes, quickly befriending him. I was recently outside in the back garden with my Dad in the evening discussing this and over here in England the weather is still cool with spring, and after days of heavy rain finally the wind had settled and no longer had we been attacked by sharp rain drops. The sky was a dark blue, half of which was a slightly paler cloud and the last dregs of sunlight were leaving, creating the night. I asked my Dad if Steve was his best friend. My Dad doesn't have many close friends at all, he is not very social, and he replied, surprisingly, with "I could trust Steve with anything; he is the only person I ever felt truly comfortable around and if that's what it means to be a best friend then yes, he was mine".
Steve died several years ago when only in his fifties. He had a heart attack when he was living abroad in Australia. I remember when I was a little girl, he and his wife Christine came round to our house one Saturday every month and stayed till late at night. I remember being a little girl and begging Steve to lift me up, to throw me around like I was flying, and him getting more and more unable to do so as the years went by. I was a naive little girl and I couldn't understand this. It was only when Steve died that I realised why he got weaker, that his heart was getting worse and he had to take it easy. I remember the day he died, my Dad standing outside alone for hours, mourning the loss of his best friend and only yesterday as I looked into that sky did I realise that angels, to me, truly do exist, and they're somewhere watching us all as we live on. I am personally not religious, but there is good in the world, no matter what your beliefs.
Very depressing Opuss haha, but what I want to say to you readers is that you must value the good things in life, the people who you love and trust and remember how happy you have made some people, and remember those who are no longer here.
Steve • Opuss № I