Remember This of Me

Memorial Balloons, Renton. March 2018.

The call came in from a friend - a local paper needed someone to cover a story and they wondered if I could do it. I said yes immediately and then heard what the assignment was: a young man had been killed on his motorcycle the year before and to mark the one year anniversary of his death, the family had arranged a cavalcade of motorcycles to ride one of his favourite routes, with an evening reception to follow. My excitement at being offered a paid gig by a newspaper was tempered at the thought of a family’s grief. A year is nothing when it comes to bereavement, emotions are still raw; loss keenly felt. Would I have wanted to have my pain on the front cover of the local paper? No. But this was not my pain and it was theirs to do with as they saw fit.