Compassion. Let me ask you a question what does the word compassion mean to you?

It has been a busy summer and the kids are well and truly back into the swing of things and like most parents going through the daily grind there are some days where you feel there are not enough hours in a day, and as human beings we can tend to take a lot of things for granted in life.

Last week, on returning from a night out camping with friends, I got a phone call that knocked me side ways, one of my fathers neighbours told me to tell me that my dad had sadly passed away, as you can imagine I was devastated.

I had only spoken to my dad an hour before, as I arrived the ambulance people and the police where so compassionate and helpful and did there best to console me in my grief.

In the coming weeks we had my dad’s funeral and as you can imagine with our family being Irish it was a big turn out, it was good to see a lot of my Muslim brothers coming to pay there respects. As it was on a Friday just before Friday prayers.

Whether you have been in this situation or not what stood out to me was how compassionate we are a human beings I can honestly say as I write this column the level of compassion I am still receiving is unbelievable.

I do believe compassion with time has a massive part in the grieving process, it goes without saying that the only certain thing we know is one day our time will come. Whether it is a friend or a family member never take for granted how helpful your compassion can have on someone who will be going through a very challenging time.

In memory of my Father Johnny Magee AKA 'Ring Dinger' he had a lot of funny Irish one liners but this is one of my favourites.

'When you got to go, you can’t say no!' and 'even if you say no!' ...you still got to go!”

RIP Dad.