NOTHING could have been better to read than opening my e-mails today. Khalid Jarrar my good Iraqi friend who had been detained by the poorly trained Mukhabarat has been released! The Jarrar family are relieved, but now it is time for us all to work on saving the thousands of others in the same boat as Khalid had been. Innocent and locked up without contact to family & friends or a lawyer. Khalid was lucky to have good friends, and good family connections, so I believe anyway.

Now to the bad news. My grandad, who recently recieved a Lung Transplant, has also recently recieved a bacterial infection from that very same lung, and is consequently closer to death than he ever was before. The poor man has struggled through so much pain, and so much suffering over the last few weeks. He has managed to re-unite his own family though, and rectify the hurt he had caused in the past. He will live or die with a much clearer conscience and knowing that his family loved him through to the very end. I hope he will survive, though things are not looking good, my optimism has been perked by the release of Khalid Jarrar, another situation that was not looking good.

I will post more on Khalid later, but now here is a poem I wrote for my poor grandad.

Prayer for Grandad.

Writing for my grandad, who I have not seen for years.
It did not hit me until today, that your' death would bring me tears.
I do not know you though I still do care, and I wish that I was there.
To help you fight this through.

So I am doing all that I can do, which is pray for you.

I know you are struggling, fighting for your life.
I know about the first time, that tears have ever left your wife.
Though over years we have grown apart, the future holds for you to see,
you're own family, re-united by tragedy.

My aunties and my mother, they love you endlessly.
They are people of which you should be proud, like you are to me.

You've fought off the evils, infections and disease.
You're coping with rejection, and re-uniting your family.
Please do not give up, for long life, I pray for thee.

Here I have to say to you, that others who you do not know, are praying for you too.
They understand the suffering, and what struggling through every breath is like.
My girlfriend, myself and even my Iraqi friends, pray for you tonight.

For Phillip Wolfenden, My grandad struggling to accept his new lung
by Luke(y) Skinner 24/7/05


I ask everyone who reads this to say a prayer for my grandad. It would mean a lot to me, and maybe he will recieve it.

A sad, but hopeful end to the day
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