Never Safe

One thing communicators should never be is smug — convinced they and their clients are safe.  There is no protection from events imagined and not yet thought of.  This was brought home to me on Friday when I received a call informing me that my oldest brother had been in a bicycle accident and is on life support.  He had pedaled thousands of miles without incident, but suddenly he plowed into the back of a truck.  There is no way of knowing why such a thing could happen.  It did.  Now his wife and daughter must prepare to live without him and those of us who depended on his leadership will have to make our own ways.  It is no use complaining about the unfairness of it all.  Life is not a matter of even-handed justice.  The good and bad both leave this earth and the only thing left of them are memories of what they did.  Recollections of my brother will be fond and vigorous for he was that kind of person.