Day 46 - Carpe Diem

I have been watching the news today and feel very sureal.

I was at Victoria Station as a lowley station manager on Feb 18th 1991 when the IRA tried to kill me and fellow passengers. Alas, the bomb they left was in a bin which one of my fellow managers Andy Brunger suggested they should be removed for security reasons but his suggestion was turned down! One guy from Thornton Heath lost his life.

Life goes on, whilst people were fighting for their life across London I was doing the same in a small radiotheraphy room in the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital.

It is a strange feeling you feel very sad for those affected, killed and their loved ones, but then very selfish as well by saying I have a chance they did not. I will not waste that chance I have been given, but hopefully you will see how short life is "carpe diem" I think Walt Whitman sums my thoughts up.

O me! O life!

O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring.
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish.
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd.
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring -- What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer That you are here--that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

-WALT WHITMAN
-1819-1892