Come rain or shine, some people just always brighten up the world

Birds hop silently around, Hoping for a crumb or two, They really are in need of help,

To see the winter through; Put out water and scraps of food,

Peanuts, fat or bread, Birds bring us cheer all summer long,

Let’s see that they are fed.

She wasn’t going to reach the bus-stop in time.

I saw her put her hand out and was sure the driver must have as well, but he went straight past her.

I stopped for a moment to sympathise. It was a miserable day and I thought the wait for the next bus might seem shorter with company.

In short, sharp breaths, she told me: “I couldn’t run for it. I have lung cancer.” Wow!

Ignored by the driver, having to wait in the rain, and with lung cancer.

It ought to have been depressing mix, but in the few minutes I spent in her company she managed to raise my spirits and make the day brighter.

Some people, it seems, will be a ray of sunshine, regardless of their circumstance! June had commented on the resemblance between a friend and her two granddaughters, only to be told there was no biological link between the gran and one of the wee girls.

“I couldn’t count the number of times I was told I looked like my dad when I was young,” she told me.

“No one outside the immediate family knew I was adopted, but people were always amazed by the similarity.

“Looking back on those times, I often wondered if, somehow, we might grow to look like the ones we love.”

I couldn’t say, June... but it really is a beautiful idea! He was in hospital and he wanted to confess something to me. I leaned forwards as he whispered. Then I sat up and laughed.

Why? Well, you see, George had been raised to be a dangerous man and his uber-macho attitude had led to excess in almost everything.

In fact, it led him to the edge of death, which was why he was in the hospital.

And what had he confessed? That he was scared and had been crying.

And why did I laugh? It was sheer delight. In feeling scared it was as if he had put away his super-tough persona and rejoined the human race. And the crying? Well… tears are the beginning of healing. Onwards and upwards, George. Evie is a newly qualified nurse. When she found her two-year-old son, Jacob, playing with her stethoscope, she decided to use it as a teaching opportunity.

She put in her ears, put the other end against his chest and said she was listening to his heart. Then she mimicked the noise: “Lub-dub, lub-dub.”

Putting the stethoscope to his ears, she put the other end to her chest and asked him what he heard.

Jacob focused intently, then he put his best interpretation on his mum’s description: “Your heart says, ‘Love-you, love-you…’”

“I almost cried happy tears, there and then,” Evie told me. “Because that is exactly what my heart says to him!”