Go In Peace

Book of the Week: Buried by Mark Billingham

I was on the line this morning when the call came, so Ewan took it. When he passed me the note saying Helen had called, I thought it could be one of any three things:
a) Iain was going home.
b) Iain had got a Marie Curie Cancer Care nurse.
c) Iain had died.

It was c). Around 9.30pm last night, in hospital, instead of at home like he had wanted. It was just so sad, and I felt quite down the rest of the morning because he had died under circumstances quite similar to Uncle Leong’s, in that they were both terminal, given six months to live, and passed away so much quicker than expected. He was the first person I interviewed in hospital.

Probably because I was reminded how I didn’t go back the weekend before Uncle Leong died, I returned to visit him, with Gareth – and a couple of classic motorcycle magazines – in tow on Monday. It was quite surreal, how badly he’d deteriorated since I saw him on Tuesday. In hindsight, he was already on his deathbed, and it’s quite weird really how one of the first things I said to Gareth yesterday morning was death-related, when I told him that it was 17 years since Mungus died. Even weirder when you consider the title of the book I just finished reading over breakfast this morning.

I only met him twice, but Iain’s death has weighed on my mind all day. I guess I’m having the usual maudlin thoughts about how frail and fragile life is, how quickly it goes by, and how you lose the ones you love sooner than you expect – especially if you take them for granted. I’m also thinking of Helen, about how, in the space of perhaps three hours, she went from wife to widow. (They decided to get married just before Iain died.) I think that encapsulates how quickly things change, and I hope I learn from that how to cherish the people I truly treasure even more, and appreciate and remember the joy they bring, no matter how fleeting.

Factoids of the Week:
Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK, affecting both sexes equally.

It’s the third most common cancer affecting both sexes in the UK.

Every year, over 35,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with bowel cancer – or one every 15 minutes.

Every year nearly 16,000 people in the UK die from it – one every 30 minutes.