"I'm running for council,"

"Q" told me, "You should too."
We have met on a city street. We are actually taking up quite a bit of space. Q is in his wheelchair and I am on my tricycle. It doesn't bother him that people have to walk around us. He has that smile on his face. This is a man who knows where he is going and how he is going to get there.
I wouldn't be a rival in this proposal. We live in different local council areas. The elections are coming up and I have just told Q about the rumours regarding our local library service. He is appalled at the idea the library could be run by volunteers. That is when he tells me he is running for council.
I tell him I won't be doing it. I cite the reasons. For once he doesn't laugh. He considers it and then says,
     "Not one for the bucket list then."
Q has a bucket list - more than one. He's done a lot on the one I know about. He has his election strategy mapped out. He'd like my ideas on one or two things but not right now.
     "Got to go," he tells me and we hastily arrange to meet on the day I go to the dentist as I'll be in the city then.
I nearly miss the train. Meeting Q tends to be a bit like that.
Except that I won't be meeting Q the day I go to the dentist. He left us suddenly - an asthma attack. It was more than his fragile body could handle. He won't be running for council.
He was born with osteogenesis imperfecta - the "brittle bone" disease that causes bones to break so very easily. I met Q when he was about eight. We continued to meet over the years. We went from the barely knowing each other child-adult relationship to the more intimate adult-adult relationship. 
It wasn't actually a friendship. We didn't know one another well enough to visit each other or socialise together but we each had a sort of  mutual respect for the activities of the other. 
Q knew people, a lot of people. He was highly recognisable and highly visible. He had a television show, a one man show at our Fringe, he appeared in more than one film. He was a fierce and unrelenting advocate for the disability sector. We agreed over many communication issues.
He's going to be missed by many. They'll miss that cheeky smile and the determination to get something done. They might even miss the extra work he caused because of his endless ideas.
I am going to miss his,
    "We can do it Cat. I know we can do it."
Of course we can.