A good friend of mine died on Tuesday, after a long life (not quite 100) and a fairly short final decline. I was there.

She had been in hospital in London for some weeks, suffering from accumulating ailments brought about (I suppose) by sheer old age. I had tried to visit when I could, which meant some six times in so many weeks. Other friends who lived closer had been more often.

On Tuesday evening I arrived to see how she was. The previous week she had looked notably better.

Now she was in a deathly state. And, as it happened, within a few minutes she silently passed away.

She had lived in that part of London for many decades. She died as a stranger in a hospital ward down the road from her home, staffed by people from all over the world who had dealt with her final illness (and accompanying pain and sheer frustration) with businesslike dignity.

And there was I.

Of all the hundreds of relatives, friends, foes, colleagues and acquaintances she had known down all those long years, it somehow fell to me to be with her in that small darken anonymous ward for those final silent few minutes.

One never knows which friendships and relationships last, and quite why.

Where one touches someone in a special way.

So that as life takes its last faltering breath only to flicker out, fate so organises things that one is not quite Alone.