Salut!, I hope, is rarely a particularly gloomy site.
Every so often, however, when wondering what next to write about, I come across something that is grim but also compelling.
Amber Marie Chochrane is a name that meant nothing to me* until last night when, purely by chance, I found this clip of her, a slideshow of still photos rather than a video, on YouTube.
There isn't really much to say, beyond challenging anyone who clicks on the picture above and watches it all the way through not to be moved as I was by her descent from beautiful child, full of life and fun, to bloated terminal cancer patient. That she remained outwardly cheerful as her life drained away is a testament to her forbearance.
Most of us, whether or not parents ourselves, feel especially saddened when children die. Amber's fate was no more unfortunate than that of the little Palestinian boy or girl arriving close to death at a Gaza hospital after another of those "surgical" Israeli strikes.
But the care her cousin took to produce such a poignant and charming photographic tribute seemed worth mentioning to Salut! readers.
And I say that not least because in an environment where a couple of minutes of filmed nonsense can attract hundreds of thousands of hits within days, the number of people who had viewed the tribute to Amber in its first month was barely in double figures when last I checked.
* There is a link at YouTube to more information about Amber, to be found of pages 22-23.
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