One thing I've learnt from my brother's recent death is the power and importance of real friends and the support they provide when you really need them. Family are very important, but they're not enough. I have witnessed the love of my mother's friends, my sister's friends, my brother's friends, my sister-in-law's friends and benefited from that of my own. I doubt I would have survived as well in one piece without them.
Today I think we saw that the power of social media and plain old ordinary media friends is not enough. We now have a new PM and I'm glad we do. She seems like a real person and a decent one at that. She is not just a social media presence nor just the darling of our fickle media. Our previous PM started out with a big media and social media wave of support behind him, but it wasn't enough to sustain a real support base when push came to shove. I think he neglected to build a solid base of friends who would support him through thick and thin.
