Since turning 43 last September I find myself thinking about death more frequently, particularly my own, I'm not really quite sure why that is or why that day between 42 and 43 really made the inexorable a pause for thought thing but I find it becoming a recurring theme playing out silently as an afterthought in the back of my mind. Sometimes I look at myself and wonder if I really worry about it or not and in some ways maybe I have more than I really thought but suddenly that voice is just slightly loud enough to hear above the normal thoughts that circle in my mind. At times I wonder if when I drift to sleep, if that's how it will be, just instead of waking up one day you just slip away and that's the end of the story, This strangely morbid state of mind has led to me looking at things that matter to me far more than others and equally things that I admire more than others too, I'm not really an outgoing nor brash person and I have always had a deep soft spot for the quiet and reclusive underdog, those people that just shut up and get on with things rather than generate a drama for nothing, Many of my characters are indeed exactly those kind of people, the ones who just get on, even if some have a more silent strength hidden beneath, But that left me thinking about something far deeper and in truth much less palatable to think about, Bravery can come in all shapes and forms, some obvious and other far less so I can't think of anything much braver than children that find themselves battling diseases that often are terminal, yet somehow they find courage to put on a smile and act like it's normal, when that fight is anything but, In some ways it makes me ashamed to think about it really, that such battles are played out in silence day in day out, some won and some lost, Sometimes just being a survivor is the bravest thing that anyone can ever be, Because silently they won the battle never should have been.