selfless

The converstaion was really very brief.

I was up at the garage, to put the car in for its MOT. Late afternoon.

The man at Reception's a guy that I've dealt with before. A very pleasant man and always really helpful. Steven's his name, I think.

Customer care is everything. The way you handle people. He's good that way.

He was saying he was off to Alnwick. As in, to live there.

"The Missus can't get a job up here," he said. "Well, she's not really my wife, but .. well, you know what I mean. She can't get a job and the chance of a job's come up there. So we're moving down there."

"Not that I've got a job lined up down there," he added. "But, credit-crunch or not, it's a chance for her and I'll run with that. A new year, a new start, that sort of thing. I thought that I should go for it and give the girl the chance."

Good man, I thought. Really very selfless.

As I say, the conversation was decidedly brief. Not a lot more than that.

But it rang certain bells in my mind. Selfless.

That was the word a person had used earlier on, describing what Sheila had been.

It was Sheila's funeral today. She died just over a week ago, and today was the day we marked together her passing.

A service along at the crematorium. And then a service here, a chance to offer our praise and thanksgiving to God for all that her life had been and for all that God gives to us all.

There were loads of folk out. And the chance such occasions afford to reflect on a person's life and see what it was that caused her to have such an impact on all of our lives - well, that's always good.

Most of the time we're all far too busy. We're rushing around with all sorts of demands to be met. And so we don't get or make the time to pause and do the real reflecting that we need to do.

To get things in perspective and to ask just why it is we end up doing the things we do. How easy to live your whole life at the rate of knots and then find that you've missed the point.

There was a lunch in the halls once the sevice was done, and a good many folk stated for that.

The girls always make such a wonderful job of the hall and the liunch they put on is the tops. It's always a lovely occasion and they're an amazing bunch of girls.

Well, it's mainly girls, there are some men, too, who help out. Which is great. But the girls are the ones who make the whole thing work. All of them selfless themselves.

And the time over lunch is always a super time. The chance to talk at length. With all sorts of folk. Comparing notes, relaing different stories from the past.

And finding ouot all sorts of different things from Sheila's life I didn't know before. Really quite humbling in many ways.

And that one word, I think, best summed the chat all up. 'Selfless'.

That's how a neighbour expressed it when speaking with me later on. She was just wholly selfless.

It's a good way to live out life. The guy at the garage Reception's discovering that as well.

It has its risks, and it always involves some adventure.

But you don't know the joys of the open seas if you don't leave the harbour walls.