He died today. One moment he was with us; the next he had left. All that he was and might have been was lost. All his potential ended, leaving us with the husk; the container; an empty shell. His eyes were open, and you could see that he had left: they were hollow and as dark and cold as a cave carved by the sea out of the sandstone cliffs. We were warned that the end could come quickly, and that we should perhaps hope that it would come quickly; that way he would be spared the tumour's pain and we would be spared watching his decline from the man he was just a few months earlier to the drug addled creature he could have become. His death was a release: it was the death most people hope for. Peaceful, quietly, at home, surrounded by his family. RIP, Ricky.