Theresa May used to be a high minister nicknamed "the Maybot" for her robotic and disengaged public appearances.
And yet, after 20 years on the political frontline, she ended her career in the most human of ways: overwhelmed and breaking into tears as she said goodbye to the job she loved.
After fronting it out for so long as a tough, resilient, immovable leader, sight of her vulnerability and humanity on the steps of Number 10 confirmed a very distinctive high minister than we have possibly come to know.
I'm informed that as she walked lower back into Number 10, her staff, in tears to match her own, had a giggle as the top minister was compelled to stroll round a sedentary Larry the cat who refused to make way for his departing owner.
Meanwhile, James Brokenshire, an historical political friend who had served with her at the Home Office, told me how she'd phoned him to tell her he used to be standing down at breakfast, simply earlier than she met Sir Graham Brady in Number 10.
He used to be on his way to an advice surgical treatment in his constituency when he took the call.
The prime minster told him to elevate on doing that as a substitute than come to Downing Street to help her.
"She said 'Well it really is important, what's vital is actually getting on... doing the job', and I suppose that sums up who she is. Because you see the work she does in her constituency, that is just so vital to her."
Others in her cupboard were knowledgeable through cellphone that she used to be about to resign as she held her assembly with Sir Graham.
Her final surrender got here after a drawn-out combat with her cupboard and her party.
Mrs May unnoticed political convention, struggling with through a self assurance vote in her leadership; via three parliamentary defeats of her key Brexit legislation; and two extensions to Brexit.
Any one of these things would be sufficient to deliver a prime minister down but she defied political gravity.
But the aggregate of the two Brexit extensions, the cross-party talks with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the strive to convey lower back her deal a fourth time with the prospect of a second referendum attached proved too an awful lot even for her.
Theresa May has announced she will resign as Conservative chief on 7 June, firing the beginning gun on a leadership race to replace her.
And so got here the cease of May.
Hers has been one of the shortest tenures of any post-war top minister and her government has passed less regulation that any different in the last three decades, bump off and paralysed in equal measure through Brexit.
It is a tenure that will be chalked up as a failure, and she will no doubt be forged by way of many as the villain in this mess.
You can see the missteps alongside the way. Mrs May drew her Brexit crimson strains - no single market, no customs union, no freedom of movement, or EU courtroom jurisdiction in the UK - too early and rigidly.
She used to be intransigent and unpersuasive and too gradual to regulate the political realities of a minority government. She used to be solely ever going to get Brexit across the line on the lower back of some kind of cross-party compromise. But she left these talks a long way too late.
That management vacuum only served to calcify arch Brexiteer and arch Remainer positions as each aspects dug their trenches deeper instead than making an attempt to move on to frequent ground.
There are many parallels between the political ends of Britain's only girl prime ministers, so far.
But she used to be additionally dealt a dire hand. She by no means simply had the numbers to skip a Brexit deal via parliament, both before her snap election or after it.
David Cameron no longer solely left her with a us of a reeling from a divisive referendum, however additionally left her with a majority of simply 12 MPs in 2016. She misplaced her final Brexit deal by means of 58 votes. Thirty 4 Conservatives voted against her deal.
Mrs May also confronted a difficult opposition. In Jeremy Corbyn, she has the most tribal of Labour leaders given that Michael Foot; the Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon set on using Brexit as a automobile to launch an independence campaign; and a Liberal Democrat party which would in no way be shifted from its position of remain.
Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister and one of Mrs May's proper allies in Europe, described her as "courageous" as he spoke for the first time about her coming near near resignation.
"The hassle is no longer Theresa May... the trouble is the state of affairs to work inside the realities of the Good Friday Agreement and the UK now not wanting to remain individuals of the customs union and not trying to remain as individuals of the interior market and all those purple lines, it was once almost not possible to come up with some thing that could command a majority in the House of Commons."
David Cameron says he feels 'desperately sorry' for Theresa May
And whilst people are speedy to choose her as the worst high minister ever - see my previous column - I would caution about what should come next.
Allies of the high minister tell me that she blocked a "no-deal" Brexit because of the implications it ought to have for the United Kingdom and the spoil up of the union. As the prime minister of the Conservative Party and Unionist Party, Mrs May wouldn't do some thing that would possibly hastened the calls for a border poll.
Because whilst Mrs May acquired there late in the day, the principle of compromise that she spoke of is the solely route via the Brexit impasse. It is about to be in even shorter furnish underneath a new Conservative prime minister.
In the forthcoming race to replace Theresa May, the birthday celebration will polarise further into the no-deal versus deal camps. And whoever wishes to win the management knows only too properly that aiding a difficult Brexit is the closest route to Tory members' hearts.
From pinnacle left to backside right: Matt Hancock, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom, Rory Stewart, Esther McVey, Michael Gove, Sajid Javid could all run to be the next high minister
Image: From pinnacle left to backside right: Matt Hancock, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom, Rory Stewart, Esther McVey, Michael Gove, Sajid Javid may want to all run to be the next prime minister
As one MP said to me in the hours after Mrs May introduced she was standing down as leader on 7 June: "Nothing changes. Not in Europe. Not mathematically in parliament. The solely issue which will appear now is an election. Which will alternate nothing."
Another Conservative prime minister delivered down with the aid of Europe, the wings of the celebration continue to be as irreconcilable as ever. Her Tory hardliners will only take delivery of a "clean Brexit".
Parliament will no longer receive a no-deal Brexit. If the future prime minister tries to take the UK out with no-deal on 31 October, will parliament attempt to cave in the government?
If the new prime minister chooses to extend Brexit further, will "spartan" Brexiteers on their very own benches strive to do the same?
So we cease the month of May with the top minister poised to stand down. But Brexit is a hassle delayed no longer resolved. And the fighting to come will be bloodier still.
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