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Isolated in love as in a dark wood,
Our two hearts, breathing their peaceful tenderness,
Will be two nightingales singing in the eventide.
Without anxiety as to what Fate holds in store for us,
We shall walk side by side,
Hand in hand, with the childlike soul
Of those whose mutual love is unalloyed—will it not be so?
-Paul Verlaine, "N'est-ce pas?" (trans. Roger Nichols)

To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. Over our meal at Parliament House with Patricia and Caterina et al I will share how much my year has been peppered with funerals and other sad stories. With some special people you cry and they cry with you ... Last month my family said good bye to my mother, yesterday my father-in-law Les Rossiter passed away. My thoughts are with Michael and Anita and Lauren as they prepare for the last rite of passage as we gather in Brissie next week to bid our final farewell ... Les developed ulcers during WWII as he was the engineer who was used to unusual questions about the planes and pilots. Using the technology available at the time, how did the Lancaster pilots know when they were at this precise altitude during their bombing runs? .... He felt guilty for every young pilot who did not return to the base. He remembered their names, he remembered their little likes and dislikes, he remembered them on every ANZAC Day ... Les you meant a lot to me. Thanks for being such a special man and even more special dad to me in my exile ...