Danny's last message is a severe turn of events.
One of the satisfactory features of communicating online is that you can read and write with a sort of detachment, if you so wish. There's the more remote cyber world and the actual real world and you can separate the two. But here, at this moment, the two coalesce. Danny's time of trial and trauma is inescapable for us too. That's how it is with true friendships.
For who, among those who visit this place regularly, cannot have formed a strong attachment to Danny? Full of life, wit, knowledge and shrewd observation, he is a paragon... a gentleman too. It's a point of frustration for me, therefore, that I can't reach out to embrace him, as I might in the real world. To share his great burden, beyond the limitations of the screen and the keyboard.
The one comfort is the knowledge that he understands that we are beside him, as family, on the difficult journey that he has now been compelled to take. When the moment is right, he will busy himself again with that great distraction called 'Pprune'. And restored, we'll all be together again, Danny in the midst of us, to reflect, to share and to laugh.
Bless you Danny. We love you.