25th September - Cancer Strikes Again



During several months of last year,  I was faced with a decision... To wake up at 5am daily, and commute to a job, or - for days when such an early start was beckoning - find a local room and lodge with a landlord to grab a few hours of extra sleep, and a few less GawkGawk3000s on a large black coffee every morning. I opted for the latter, and found a small and unspectacular bedroom in the upper echelons of an elderly landlady's abode, 20 mins walk from my workplace. I'd stay with her weekly and we'd always engage in small bouts of conversation each time. Through this, and a general browsing of the items around her house, I managed to piece together a form of profile on this woman. 

Originally from Venezuela, but also with strong Portuguese connections, she was clearly very religious, and peppered numerous images of Jesus Christ around her living room, and also lived in quite a cluttered space, but had been through the tribulations of life, including divorce and deceitful relationships, where she'd been fucked over and now, in (I'd guess) her early 60s, had channelled all her energies into business, and making money from her accommodation assets. Every week I'd return with the £25 fee in cash, hand it over to her, and she'd say "Thank God for giving you more work", so I was instantly aware that these finances were something of a necessity to her. 




As my situation changed throughout the year, I decided to commute post-Christmas, and barely spoke to her for most of 2022, other than a few random WhatsApps where "Hi Jack" would pop up on my screen (as it seems to, daily, via various folk who can't seem to grasp the simplicity of my 4-letter name), and she would make small portions of friendly conversation to ask how the job was going etc. Last week, I returned to her home to repeat the same process as last Autumn, and as I walked through the door (she leaves the key in a secret spot for me), we were reunited and I asked how she is, and how she has been.

"Well Jack", she said (I didn't have the heart to correct her). "I have the cancer". My heart immediately dropped, and as I looked at her closer I could see a slit-throat scar across her windpipe. "I've had the first operation," she mused, sadly. "They found it first in February, but... It's very aggressive... I don't know. I have another operation next month, but my friend, she will take over the business here after that. I need to return home to Venezuela. To sort things there over Christmas." She seemed resigned to her fate, and without explicitly saying the words we all knew she was eluding to, the magnitude of things hit me. Just one year ago, we were heartily joking in her hallway, conversing weekly, and then here I am, returning, with a happy and healthy year under my belt, and her life is being taken away from her. With 1 in 2 of us now statistically diagnosed with it in our lifetimes, my only immediate thought, was that it's happened to yet another kind soul...




... Fucking Cancer strikes again.



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