For Carina who has always offered me an 'extra-ordinary' degree of support, understanding and compassion – C.A.L.

E

xtra-ordinary people have to learn to live extra-ordinary lives... We didn't choose to be who we are: we are the products of factors and events over which we had no control.

Yet we, who did not choose to be us, will today be responsible for ourselves, for others and for all our actions and inactions. The issues, times and places may not be of our choosing but our options, our responses and our decisions will depend upon influences and circumstances that are uniquely ours.

It won't help us to wonder what others might do in our position. Anyone truly in our position would do exactly what we will do. We are alone, unique, and extra-ordinary. So, no one can be responsible for our actions or inactions, nor we for theirs.

We live alone with ourselves, which can be as difficult as living with any stranger. We will never match our expectations of ourselves, nor those of others. Instead we must do what an unforgiving world may not: treat ourselves with the tolerance and goodwill we would accord any stranger.

At the beginning and the end of each day, any one of which could be our last, we must bid a fond welcome and a forgiving farewell to this very familiar stranger – who cannot live fully without our understanding, our respect and our love.