Get busy living

A year ago today, a man with a heart as big as the sea breathed his last. His body was laid to rest a few days later but his impact lives on.

Iain was a man who opened his life to people, loving them, laughing with them, encouraging them, listening to them. The hands of a stonemason, with the softest of souls. He loved because he had been forgiven, set free from fear and given a chance to live as a child of God.

As often happens, the moments of reflection at as a coffin is laid bare can be harrowing, challenging and galling. But I felt no bitterness that day. Perhaps just a little more resolve.

The storywriter Steven King created characters that would resonate loudly with a 14.5-year old who read The Shawshank Redemption as a break from Asterix and Tintin.

Get busy living, or get busy dying“.

I pray I won’t need to be incarcerated in order to lay hold of the truth of those words.

I pray too that the legacy of a man who loved God and loved people would live on in those of us who had the privilege of being around him.

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