At the beginning of the month I brought in my geraniums and fuchsias – too late for the fuchsias. I look at them on the windowsill to see if the tiniest green shoot has emerged from the woody stalk. None has appeared.

The wind has whipped up the leaves into a pile against the drystane dyke around the steading. I notice, mundanely, that it is difficult to see other leaves amid those of the sycamore. High in her boughs the bees had buzzed as they swarmed there in early summer. Her summer shelter lies on the ground – dried and withered.

One day at work I found a moment of reprieve when I noticed the incredible sunset that was building up from my otherwise dull window at work.

I picked up my camera and walked outside to try to capture this strange light; low grey clouds battled with bright white stratus, as cool pink cirrus heralded the sun's descent.

On Friday evening the sky was shimmering with a cold peach-bloom – strong linear clouds lay across the dim like golden swords.

Beneath this amber aura, the hills were black and soundless shapes. The whole scene blurs as tears separate me from the ending of the day.

How could I have known last week when I reminisced about a special friend whose life was stolen at the desperately young age of 20 that I would have to bear such unbelievable grief once more?

"Light up, light up as if you have a choice; even though you cannot hear my voice" – words of one of our star's new singles shatters my fragile mood, and I realise my legs are shaking.

The darkness shields me though it looms all around, preying on the light. Grief is like an unspoken love that cries out in the emptiness and then is silenced. We have lost a colleague, a friend, a brother, a son, a man. The loss can be shared among many, but is unique to each.

A treasure in the midst of arrogance, pride, gossip – the unfortunate traits of the masses.

This young man was quiet, dignified, and willing to work with unparalleled humility. The question I keep asking myself is surely he should have a greater tenacity for life? A friend said to me that he would have known the value of his life. So gentle was his spirit that injuries inflicted could not be overcome.

I find solace in the arms of nature. The cycles of nature are at present neverending, though they can change. He will rejoin the cycle of nature.

However, the death of the young shakes the deepest parts of our awareness and our souls.

Native Americans say that wholeness is not measured by the duration of a life but by the fullness with which that person has entered each moment.

I know that in time grief fades, though it is everpresent.

We learn to take the cuts, clinging on when they are slashed open. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."