Leukaemia took my Mother in Law when she was about my age. Not a way I would choose to go.
This chap was exceptionally fit, but - apparently - has had leukemia for a few years.
Actually, I haven't seen him since my own mother's funeral, and the pandemic put everyone's lives on hold for a few years.
Death and taxes. Death and taxes.
Taxes are preferable to death, but yes, both are always with us.
Here I’m finishing on time as I’m heading to London in the morning. Leaving at 5 am. What joy.
Safe travels.
Given your post I feel bad complaining about it.
Well, it gets even worse, in a way.
The cousin whose husband died also has a brother who has terminal cancer, a difficult, demanding, person, but now, all she has left in her immediate family; her other brother died - rather tragically - in Kenya, where he had worked as a geologist (and had also worked in Tanzania, and some time earlier, in Saudi) a little over a decade ago.
And now, she has lost her husband - whom she married late. Decades earlier, - in her early 20s, they had been an exceedingly early boyfriend/girlfriend pairing - a very good one - but (she) had decided that it was too soon to make things permanent which is what he would have liked; while she remained single, he had married, raised a family, and, in time, become a widower, and, some years later, to their mutual delight, they discovered (re-discovered) one another on social media, whereupon they had got back together, (very happily) never having forgotten the warm feelings they had had one another; they married less than a decade ago, bought a house in Spain, and were very happy, travelling frequently back and forth. She will be devastated.
Another cousin (the cousin I phoned today, who had phoned Decent Brother with all of this news with instructions to contact me - who, fortunately, thanks to the weather, learned that he was able to WFH today, - who is also a cousin to the cousin who has just lost her husband) told me about all of this, also adding the details about her own brother, the marathon fitness guy.
And, adding further to the tangled tales of woe, the marathon runner cousin had had a brush with death, an appalling haemorrhage, - fortunately, he was in hospital when it happened - around six weeks ago, an appalling week-end for his family, as his wife's sister had also died (unexpectedly) then.
I expect that a funeral - my mother was very fond of the cousin (her niece) who has just lost her husband - will require my presence presently, as I think that Decent Brother has other commitments.
