When I first looked at my phone this morning there was a bright red notification badge to say I had received a group message on Facebook. It was from an old army friend and all I could see was the first word, Gents. I knew straight away what it was, I've been waiting for this message for a couple of weeks now. I opened the messenger app with dread and there it was; Gents, Bad news, Graham lost his battle with cancer last night. More information regarding funeral etc in due course. My heart sank and some tears came, just a few as I didn't want the kids to come down stairs and see me upset, and then I wished him goodbye. My thoughts were of happy times, some random memories and of course our last night out which I talked about briefly in this blog earlier. I finished my coffee, took my eldest son to training and set off for work. I had a really important meeting to get to today and I knew that in the car alone I could gather my thoughts and process them properly. As I made my way up the motorway I thought about the last 3 years, Graham was diagnosed in the September of 2012 and found out virtually straight away that he was terminal. I was working every hour I could at the time and didn't really get a chance to speak to him properly but I remember feeling shocked. A friend of mine about the same age as me with kids had been told he had terminal cancer, it was the first time I thought of my mortality in terms of illness. I sent him my best wishes, offered to help in anyway I could and then had to face the ridiculous amount of work and stress on my plate. I was diagnosed myself 5 months later and then as you have read previously and will read again as we go along further with this blog that I shut myself off from most people whilst I went through treatment and yes I'm embarrassed to add I found it difficult to think or talk about Graham at this time. When I posted on Facebook that I had gone into remission one of the people who commented was Graham, he was pleased for me and my family, and at that point I knew I needed to speak with him and see how he was. He was working part time still on the army specialist team I served in as the civilian technical officer and I called in to see him and have a chat. We talked about old times, music, some daft memories like our 9 hour drive in a Landrover and trailer from Nottingham to Cornwall and stopping off for pasties at my mum's house, or Janice in the canteen deep frying everything on our breakfasts at Naafi break each morning! We only briefly talked about cancer, I felt guilty I was a survivor and he never would be but that meant nothing to him, we were two old friends catching up nothing else. Over the next year or so I saw him from time to time and other people kept me up to date with how he was getting on, he struggled for a lot of it I'm led to believe, he held onto some anger and found it hard to process. I also believe that he and his wife had some difficult times but and this is probably the point of this chapter, she stayed with him and last night when he went she was there by his side. For me that's how it should be, we all have that one person in our life who is meant to be there, the person who will be with us when we leave this world, who will be our comfort in our darkest times and our rock when we lose our way and need something to cling to. I have that person in my life and for that I am very happy. There is a saying that goes "You only live once" or "YOLO" as the youngsters say! I disagree you only die once, every new day is a new chance to live, to be the person you want to be, to do the things you want to do. You live every day that you wake up and you should appreciate that, you should spend time with the people you love, tell them that you do, because there will be a time that it was the last time you told them. I'm sat thinking about memories of him a lot today and one of the things we talked about a lot was music, he loved his music as do I and one song that reminds me of him is perseverance by Terrorvision. It's a random one I know but it came about during a lively discussion about the Britpop of the mid 90's and he gave me a CD with the album on to broaden my musical tastes. And yes he was right I loved it. I've played it today amongst others and tonight I'm going to finish this chapter with a link to the video. Then tonight I'll sleep and tomorrow I'll wake and live again, I'll live well and tell the people that matter I love them because you never know when that last time will be. Farewell Graham my old friend, sleep well with dreams of happy memories past. Let's rock out one last time.
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Darren EvansOn Feb 11th 2013 my life changed forever when I was diagnosed with a myxoid liposarcoma of the right thigh. This is my version of my life since then. Archives
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