This evening I'd planned to go and visit my friend in hospital, but unfortunately it was too late. The cancer that had been ravaging his body finally won it's battle. Expected since it's prognosis, it doesn't detract from the sense of loss and frustration, my friend a mere few months older and an ever present through my life. Gone. He was there when we watched the combine harvesters in the field that backed onto our houses, when we walked to school, when we played water fights with washing up liquid bottles, when we played lego, when we thought we were characters of star wars at school, when we played football. On going to secondary school I was so pleased that we were to attend the same school, and despite being in different houses, we were in gsce classes for english and maths, going to school together until we could drive ourselves in various embarrassing transport for adolescent lads, my parents temperamental vauxhall viva which required wd40 an overnight blanket on the engine to ensure it started, or traveling with rebek in her dad's skoda. Of all the people I went to school with, it is these two early friends of mine that I have kept in contact with. John and I would exchange letters at uni and then emails, occasionally meeting up when we were both around chesterfield. Whilst I was traveling John was one of the few people to whom I corresponded by postcard from every country I visited and he described me as being like uncle matt from the fraggles, sending postcards to gobo. When I started writing this blog he was one of the few early readers, and it was the knowledge that someone was actually reading and enjoying these witherings that inspired me to continue. When we met he'd frequently talk about it and laugh at the articulation of some of my teletext reviews. Meeting his fiance and future wife late last year, we talked of his recent promotion and of course football, and his beloved liverpool. It was in March that we last met before his illness had really taken hold, and I still owe him a drink from then! Since then each meeting has seen the ravages of his illness reduce his body to a shadow of it's former self, though I will remember our last hand shake as i left a few weeks ago, still firm in it's grasp as we bid farewell.
Monday, September 25, 2006
John
This evening I'd planned to go and visit my friend in hospital, but unfortunately it was too late. The cancer that had been ravaging his body finally won it's battle. Expected since it's prognosis, it doesn't detract from the sense of loss and frustration, my friend a mere few months older and an ever present through my life. Gone. He was there when we watched the combine harvesters in the field that backed onto our houses, when we walked to school, when we played water fights with washing up liquid bottles, when we played lego, when we thought we were characters of star wars at school, when we played football. On going to secondary school I was so pleased that we were to attend the same school, and despite being in different houses, we were in gsce classes for english and maths, going to school together until we could drive ourselves in various embarrassing transport for adolescent lads, my parents temperamental vauxhall viva which required wd40 an overnight blanket on the engine to ensure it started, or traveling with rebek in her dad's skoda. Of all the people I went to school with, it is these two early friends of mine that I have kept in contact with. John and I would exchange letters at uni and then emails, occasionally meeting up when we were both around chesterfield. Whilst I was traveling John was one of the few people to whom I corresponded by postcard from every country I visited and he described me as being like uncle matt from the fraggles, sending postcards to gobo. When I started writing this blog he was one of the few early readers, and it was the knowledge that someone was actually reading and enjoying these witherings that inspired me to continue. When we met he'd frequently talk about it and laugh at the articulation of some of my teletext reviews. Meeting his fiance and future wife late last year, we talked of his recent promotion and of course football, and his beloved liverpool. It was in March that we last met before his illness had really taken hold, and I still owe him a drink from then! Since then each meeting has seen the ravages of his illness reduce his body to a shadow of it's former self, though I will remember our last hand shake as i left a few weeks ago, still firm in it's grasp as we bid farewell.
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4 comments:
I remember him leaning against the breakfast bar laughing at us as you threw a glass of water over me to make me scream to cover up for the neat orange we had somehow spilt on the floor.
I remember thinking he was the best looking of all your friends!
I remember the car ourneys too.
Good friends are hard to find. I'm sorry that you have lost one of yours. Thinking of you. love little sis xx
what a wonderful way of remembering your friend. thoughts to you and his other friends and to the family members he's left behind.
Chris - thanks for sharing such a moving tribute to your friend. All the best and thoughts and prayers for you in your own loss and grief.
thanks for your kind comments
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