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Good friends we had, and good friends we've lost/Along the way
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The road to God knows where … Brendan O'Brien · Good friends we had and good friends we've lost/Along the way
The road to God knows where ... Brendan O'Brien 
A young Segovia? Another wonderful photograph of Sean. He sure was a good poser. I love the patterns made by the light beams, the chair legs and and guitar fret markings. (There is even a suggestion of bag-pipes in the chair frame!)The first picture is gorgeous; the second shows the man from the boy. Equally beautiful.
Thank you, PG. Again, Pauline took the top photo. What you say about patterns (and bagpipes!) is interesting.
The second was taken by his friend Aaron in a corner of our garden. The two of them had made a camp fire and sang songs… after we went to bed I had to stick my head out the window and tell them to keep the noise down!
Another cracker of a black-and-white photograph, Brendano. Beautiful child. Your wife is gifted – but you know that.
Was your son a good guitarist?
Thanks, Cymbeline. He could play, but hadn’t applied himself enough to be particularly accomplished. He was generally good at anything to which he applied himself.
In the week before he died I was teaching him to play barre chords, which he would have needed for reggae songs.
This time eight weeks ago we were looking forward to watching Munster and Leinster in the Heineken Cup … they will be playing in it this Sunday for the first time since. P & S were looking forward to the Italy trip. Strange how so much can change in a short space of time.
You often use the word ‘strange’ to speak of what is humanly terrible, beyond understanding.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that we carry on somehow. Where does the strength come from?
I don’t know. The glib answer would be that it comes from within (‘something inside so strong’). We have resources to call on that we may never need.
The end of a poem called ‘December’ that I wrote a couple of years ago … you’ll probably remember it:
And in the day’s last lustre
We walked past nature’s seraphim
Each of us our own seed-cluster
On an unseen, unacknowledged limb.
Yes, I certainly remember those lines.