We all have bad spells. Sometimes minutes - you thought you'd lost your phone/purse, dog (but found out you hadn't). Sometimes days or weeks or even months - you lost your job, your partner left, your dog died. Some people suffer from depression - in fact, many of us will at some point in our lives. Happily, it's slowly, slowly losing the stigma it once had but for those whose black dogs stalk their paths, appearing uninvited and unwelcome for no apparent reason,  days or weeks or months become a dark place of no hope. All that can be done in those periods of sadness or depression (and they are not the same thing) is to be patient, to sit it out and wait for things to improve, the clouds to lift, for waking to be unsullied by a heavy heart. Which, usually, they do, thank God. 

But what if you had heard the worst news of all? What if the Grim Reaper's arrival had been announced and was now in your calendar? I suspect we all think we know how we might react; some in terror, some in despair, some with grim determination, some with abject denial. 

I doubt many of us would meet it like my friend Lucy who met it with courage and joyous energy I am bereft of words to describe. So I shan't try. I shall let Tom Utley do it instead.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/~/article-4255062/index.html

And just as Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy - who was a childhood heroine of mine and a real, early feminist role model - brought joy to so many in small and huge ways, so has Lucy. And that never dies.