One of the ironies of Henri Nouwen’s sudden death 25 years ago was that a writer beset by a sense of homelessness and so beloved of restless seekers should die on a rare stopover in his home country, surrounded by his family

I was astonished, and at first ­disbelieving, 25 years ago, to learn that my friend Henri Nouwen had died on 21 September 1996, during a stopover in Amsterdam on his way to Russia. In contrast, the news just days before that he had suffered a mild heart attack had come as no surprise. Henri was notoriously overworked, careless about his need for rest while travelling about giving talks, visiting friends and writing books at a furious pace – even in the midst of a “sabbatical year”. Surely he would recover.

I myself had seen him only weeks before, when he visited my home to deliver the manuscript of his latest book, Adam: God’s Beloved. Henri’s original plan had been to write a book about the Apostles’ Creed, but this had taken a completely different turn after the death of Adam, a severely disabled young man assigned to Henri’s care during his early years as chaplain at the L’Arche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill, Ontario. In surprising ways, Adam had become, for Henri, a deep spiritual guide, and in his life and death he saw a personal re­enactment of the gospel story. Adam announced “the marvellous ­message of God … Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by name, and loved by the One who fashioned us”.