Dead Man Walking....

Arra....

What to say.....

Micheal (pronounced Mee-Hall), has been a friend with fights for a long time now.

We lived beside each other for a long time, helped each other, fought like tinkers, drank like sailors, cursed like (and at) soldiers, grew vegetables together, loved and hated similar things, threw appreciative eyes at the yummy mummies at the school gates of a Monday morning, raised beds together, burned midnight oil, hatched schemes together, and laughed at them.

Together.

I cant help him now.

"Progressive Cancer", its called, a misnomer of the highest water....

Michael is angry.

Angry that, after a life spent raising two lovely boys into men, without a mother, against the forces of The State, denied any State support because he is a man, this pile of shit lands on him.

I cried when I met him, or the half-man I met in Joes.

A few days out of hospital, due back in soon, we rang everyone we knew to say Hello.

Not Goodbye, never Goodbye....