Life on the edge

If there's one thing you can be sure about in life, it's that you can never be sure about life. 'You never know what's around the corner' or 'you could be hit by a bus tomorrow' are such cliches. But they're true.

I'm the queen of putting things off till tomorrow or leaving things till the last minute. 'It's fine,' I tell myself. 'I've got plenty of time.' And usually I do, but that's the arrogance of youth (early 30s is still young, thank you).

Often the experiences lurking behind these 'corners' everyone likes to bang on about are amazing, life-affirming, heart-lifting, positive. In my 33 years, I'd say I've had my fair share of these, and feel hugely grateful for that.

But sometimes, something happens that's just so sad and shocking and awful that your heart feels like it's shattered into tiny little pieces. Pieces that are too small and numerous you'll never be able to find them all and put them back together, even if you had the right glue. That's how I feel today, for my oldest friend who's just lost her husband to cancer. He was 45 and they'd been married less than three years. It's not just her heart that's in bits, it's her whole world.