Colleagues
I am currently in Scotland having come over for a meeting a week or so
ago. Hopefully I will be able to return to the US by midweek, but travel is rather
complicated at the moment.
As a transplant to America, I have made it my home and country and I am overwhelmed
by the care and consideration of our colleagues all over the world. At 12 noon today,
I attended an interdenominational Memorial Service in St. Giles Cathedral,
Edinburgh, Scotland. It was an opportunity for me to grieve for my friends and colleagues
and those many people unknown to most of us perhaps. Of the hundreds
in attendance, I knew noone at all. Yet, during that hour I felt the pain of
the people around me and shed more than a few tears myself. I am glad that for
just a while, we can forget the science and concentrate on the pain and misery that
surrounds the people of New York, Washingon and the many places around the world from
which people came. My personal grief was a friend aboard one of the crashed planes.
Science is not everything, or indeed even important at a time like
this. Thank you all for expressing your feelings - we are indeed friends through
the common bond of science. To our many cytometry colleagues in those areas attacked,
we are with you in spirit.
best wishes
Paul Robinson.....somewhere in Scotland....away from home and missing
it...