“An Angel that walks amongst us”

SYDNEY – In those bleak moments when the lost souls stood atop the cliff, wondering whether to jump, the sound of the wind and the waves was broken by a soft voice. “Why don’t you come and have a cup of tea?” the stranger would ask. And when they turned to him, his smile was often their salvation.

For almost 50 years, Don Ritchie has lived across the street from Australia’s most notorious suicide spot, a rocky cliff at the entrance to Sydney Harbour called The Gap. And in that time, the man widely regarded as a guardian angel has shepherded countless people away from the edge.

What some consider grim, Ritchie considers a gift. How wonderful, the former life insurance salesman says, to save so many. How wonderful to sell them life.

“You can’t just sit there and watch them,” says Ritchie, now 84, perched on his beloved green leather chair, from which he keeps a watchful eye on the cliff outside. “You gotta try and save them. It’s pretty simple.”

i miss the little girl

religion

What happens when you thank God for someone who expressed disbelief in Him?

Henrik Ibsen

“The costliness of keeping friends does not lie in what one does for them,
but in what one, out of consideration for them, refrains from doing.”

electronic communication

“Did you do the 10 digit on the file that I must import.”
“I note really broken service, he is just have some unpaid time off”

While I appreciate succinct email responses, some tempt me to reply with “WTF are you talking about?”

lemons and lemonades

我想是偶尔难免沮丧　
想离开 想躲起来
心里的期待 总是填不满

hold on

Global meetings last so long that I went from being headachy and throwing up my dinner to simply having a churning stomach.

The taiwanese drama that was part of my life for the past two months had come to a resolution. Doing the right thing sucks 80% of the time. Oh well.

Training has been useful. Having to work after training is not fun though.

sibling

On Death.

Bro: Ha that works too. You’ll find someone who makes you feel like queen, then you can laugh at all the other peasants, I’m sure of that
Me: Haha, what’s the point of being a queen ghost?
Bro: Sentence them to an eternity of ghoulish enslavement or banish them to be incarnated as prawns!
Me: Prawns are useful. Make them snails or something! I like the way you think man.
Bro: Prawns are drowned in wine, can’t swim very fast even in impending danger, and are bred as food. Snails are left alone pretty much unless they leave crap on the floor. Turning red upon being heated isn’t even cool. Nuff said.

I love that boy.