It wasn’t a bullet fired from a gun. It wasn’t the swish of a Samurai sword or the spinning wheels of a speeding car. It was tiny, so small that only peering through a microscope will reveal the shape of the thing that took my son. I didn’t know something so miniscule could bring such a Tsunami of pain and despair. Meningitis. A name to strike terror into every parent’s heart. An unforgiving warlord of destruction that leaves life a shattered shell of what it once was. A fatal blow to every hope for the future and every promise that it once held. It is over a year since our lively, happy and vivacious twelve year-old son, Calum, was stripped from us by something that has no malice, only indifference to the victims of happenstance, no evil, just random causality passing through a life. It isn’t fair. In a world of increasing darkness, Calum was a beacon of shining surety. He was never miserable, rarely sullen and was nearly always to be seen with a beaming smile or heard with an infectious laugh. All my life my ambitions were simple. A loving wife and a full family life was all I ever wanted. Was it so much to ask? Calum was everything that I had hoped he would be. Kind, considerate, intelligent and well on his way to being a fine responsible member of society. He was loved by family and friends, enriching their lives with his joy and sense of fun; indeed he enriched more lives in nearly thirteen years than some people manage in eighty. Now he’s gone our family is incomplete, Kirsten, my daughter has lost her hero and playmate, Kim, my loving wife, and I have lost our son and friend. I wish I could say that the pain is dissipating, that the Tsunami had run its course but the waves of despair still crash on our once placid beach. The loss of Calum’s vibrant energy has drained every one of us, we are like trees without the sun withering in the darkness. We’re told that the sun will shine again but it still seems a distant prospect, light from another galaxy many years away. I’m sure we will reach it but the journey is a long one, there is no instant transport to avoid the stresses of the way, no diversions around the obstacles in our path. I love you son with all my heart and miss you dreadfully. Your loving Dad