Our focus is on the end, I heard someone saying recently. But, said that person, while the end is important, it is the one event we can’t neither avoid nor predict.

So would it be wiser to spend more time focusing on the here and now, on our every-day journey through life. What we make of it.

I have been thinking for the past days about the meaning of Louise’s untimely departure, that is if there is a meaning.

I consider myself incredible fortunate to have been a friend of Louise’s. I think I can speak for many, many other people whose lives were touched by Louise, that she was one of the most generous, helpful, and caring people you could ever come across. Her kindness and at times slightly wacky (if that is the word:) type of humour will stay with me forever.

As does her legacy: the recognition of the importance of living a good life, of being there for others.

Tonight was the first Monday night in a long, long time that it was us who were sitting around Pádraig’s bed instead of Louise reading to him from one of the Irish books she had searched for, found, and brought along for Pádraig. She was there with us. And she will always be.