Hope

Our friend has died, the friend who was better than us in every respect. A better, kinder person, a better thinker. He liked to have us around so he could hear our laughter, he told us. You're always laughing, he said. He laughed, too. He was unlike every other academic: he was a human being, fully rounded, he'd lived in the world; he'd seen a great deal.

Hadn't a friend died in his arms? That was in the middle of a war, in Africa. He was a monk at that time, and his friend a brother-monk. Why did he join the Christian Brothers? Why did he leave them? We were never sure, but he fell into our orbit at one time or another and it was as if he was always there. Didn't he fit right into our world? Or was it that his world, full of laughter, full of a serious awareness of the pain and misery in the world, was encompassing enough to include ours?

He was a better person than us, that much was plain. From him, W. learned how to take notes at presentations: in black ink from the front for undeveloped thoughts, and in red ink from the back for developed ones. W. proudly shows me his notebook, saying that he'd done exactly what our friend said.

He died too young, much too young. He left a wife, a baby. A baby! Only a few months before he'd emailed us to tell us of the birth. He was overjoyed. A few months before that, we were sat in his kitchen, his friends – colleagues, colleague-friends – all around him. We ate Indian food – remember that? We talked about … what was it we talked about?

He was better than us, he worked hard, he was about to publish what would have undoubtedly been a very fine book. He was taking great strides in the world; he wasn't like us, withered and depressed, for all our laughter. He despaired, but his was an exhilarated despair; he lifted all of us like a wave. Didn't he have a capacity for hope that we signally lacked? And did we ever thank him for it, the capacity for hope in these dark times?