sometimes it just hits you....

It's been a few years but I only saw this today, wandering around SOAS with my camera early in the morning....

just opposite the main Birkbeck entrance you will find this remembrance plaque

I remember the day

...we were living near Great Ormond St Hospital at that time so work was a mere 10 minute walk away

hearing the bus go up....sounding like nothing else I'd heard....I'd gone past just a few minutes before....where it was destined to explode

Living so close , passing by daily where the site of the bus was shielded by white sheets whilst the scene was examined cleaned investigated....for quite a while, all seemed a different colour, the brighter shades subdued, edges sharper and also blurred....that day of bombs on tubes and buses...


I don't know if I met Benedetta, but as a student in Birkbeck it's possible that we may have crossed paths unknowingly....She met her end in the Aldgate bombing, and considering the connection with Islamic extremism of the bombers, the irony....her fiancé was a British born Muslim and they were planning a joint Catholic Muslim celebration in Rome using rites from both faiths.


in my mind today she is a reminder of all that have died and suffered because of the violence of 'those that know best' ...the bigot the authoritarian the disciplinarian,  the haters of women of men of gays of lesbians of the 'weak' of foreigners of difference of tolerance of peace of love filled with the certainty of their righteous insecurities and fear



faith? I don't know.....do I have any? I'm not sure what it is...I do know that to work against fear is to make life better...for myself and others...whether they are people I love or know or strangers....a simple thing....I can feel more alive when I love and smile and laugh than when I hate or fear or am afraid....tricky sometimes but simple


..... so a leap of faith?  .......try it...can't hurt, eh.