A few days ago I wrote about death as an end-game that one could win if one wore a smile as the checkmate came. Since then my best friend has had two of her friends die, and my own partner is having a close brush whose future is still in doubt. It seems as if there are end-games all around – not a strange thing for a man like me in his ninth decade, and a phenomenon to which one must adapt or concede. Despite their importance, our most valued relationships can be snapped in a moment, leaving us with a gap which we may never fill.
If we are to carry on with our lives – and I have plenty to carry on with – then we need to be able to take the departure of friends in our stride.
‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays.
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
So said Omar Khayyam, according to Fitzgerald’s translation. Pawn, queen, or bishop, our turn inexorably comes. All the more reason, then, to value and cherish love wherever we find it, and to give and receive it freely, never failing to tell those we love, so that we never have to feel the bitter regret of finding too late that we should have done.
‘Life is sweet, my children!’ said the ghost of murdered Yasmin in Flecker’s Hassan. It behooves us to enjoy it as much as we possibly can, while we can. This is my philosophy, and it has stood me in good stead for more than eighty years.
