I called my friend and colleague Marianne today.

"Marianne!" I exclaimed - "I do beg your pardon: Remind me - did I say I'd call you today, or did you say you'd call me?"

"I said I'd call you" she replied - "and I apologise that I haven't done so yet!" - I was about to say "Hey, no worries, you've probably been busy!" when she interjected and said "a good friend of mine passed away today!"; "She was only 49"; "Cancer" she went on in her broken, considered way.

"OOOOh mannnnn!" I thought, "She was a baby!".
It's amazing how fast we can think - how much data our brains can process in the most compressed frames of time.

"Her name was Elissa!"; "Elissa-Jane!" 

I screamed inside my own head - "Oh my gosh!", and instantly I felt wracked with guilt.
I knew her; and the last time I thought about her, my thoughts were angry!!

Suddenly, the full meaning of 'it's a short life!' came home to me. Actually, it wasn't a gentle arrival - more like a hammer blow!

Here's what had happened. Elissa had stood me up - she made an arrangement to turn up to a meeting and she simply didn't do it. No apology, no explanation! I was, needless to say, annoyed! The worst was, that she'd done that more than once.

But, the last time I saw her was at an event last year (2011) in Cardiff, and she told me that she had cancer - I obvioulsy felt for her - Lord knows that I have people close to me who have been touched by this scourge.

"Coffee?" she asked at the event,
"But of course!" I replied, and with that, the date was set. This was June, last year.

Blow me over with a feather - I sat there at the Village Hotel when I received her text message to say
'sorry, can't make it; feeling a little low!" - and with that, the steam coming out of my ears was visible for all to see.

"That's just it now!" I raged inside myself, "I will never again even agree to even see this person, let alone meet up with her!"

What a difference 7 months makes. . . . Now, here I sit and contemplate - what the hell was all that about? How short life is; she probably did feel crap on the day that she sent me her text, and I was probably too busy being angry to hear what she was really saying.

"So, I'll call you back tomorrow George" Marianne said - I didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't hear a word she'd said; I was too busy being absent . . .again.

I'm sorry Elissa, wherever you are . . . .