Bon courage ami (& how apt the thread title is...)
(Yes, am still here, but in stealth!Zebra mode - my nemesis, The Donkey Of Destiny, has been Particularly Evil the last few days so am deep in Fort Duvet, guarded by the ever-faithful ZebraCats, plotting my Revenge. If anyone has any ideas on how one might manage to clobber an existential construct, do let me know, won't you? Because having to - just over a week after what would have been my mother's 63rd birthday, had she not died when I was 10 - tell my Brownie Unit the mother of one of the Unit had died earlier in the week [oh & they were unaware she was ill so it came as a total shock] was quite spectacularly grim. And the Brownies were all so good about Being Normal with her, as I'd told them was the very best & kindest thing they could do. She is so little though - & has a younger sister - & it is so very unfair. There are certainly some other people who it seems more reasonable for that bastard donkey to have knocked off this mortal coil. And yes it is very wrong to say that, but...)