I didn't mention it earlier in the week but this week has been awful for the Wolvercote community and one family in particular. On Sunday coming back from Madam Tussaud's we heard over the radio that a boy of 15 had fallen into the river in Oxford and drowned. It was only when I was up in Edinburgh that Tash told me it was Ben Halsey-Jones who are a family that we are friends with and live only a matter of doors away on our street. Tash would often look after his younger siblings and Ben would crash out on our sofa watching telly so she got to know him well enough to be really upset by this - as are the rest of the community.
There was a prayer evening for him today at the local church that pretty much all of Wolvercote attended, I didn't make it as I was playing the Vets football match, but when coming home near the end of it I could see all the cars drawn up. Apart from the obvious tradegy, the police divers still haven't been able to locate Ben's body from the river, this just doesn't bear thinking about and you pray each day that he is found so that he can be buried properly.
I don't even pretend to imagine what the family are going through, there is great local support as it is quite a close-nit community here, but the thought of losing your child in any manner however serious or innocuous (he rode over a pothole and lost his balance from the towpath!) just leaves me cold and no words would get through to me.
It just drives home to you how fickle life is and how important little things are and not to be complacent with any of it.
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