I didn’t write this morning because I was feeling tired and a bit low. We celebrated M’s cousin’s 4th birthday last night, and in the midst of the children watching Sponge Bob cartoons, swatting balloons, and eating three varieties of cake, we talked about two people who died this week. I was acquainted with one of the people who died, and didn’t know the other.
The person I sort of knew, D, used to work at the Fremantle Markets – at least until he got sick. On Wednesday he died of mesothelioma – cancer in the lining of his lungs. He apparently came into contact with asbestos when he was about 16 years old and got himself a summer job helping to demolish an old church. There was asbestos in the building, somewhere, and although that was the only time he worked with any of that awful stuff, it was enough to make him sick many years later.
The other person who died had a heart attack while he was out on a boat on the weekend. He was only 42 years old and had seemed perfectly healthy before the weekend, so healthy that many people who were told he’d died didn’t believe it. He had three children – the oldest 10, youngest 4. I can’t imagine how his wife must be feeling right now.
Because I knew D, it’s really strange to think that I’ll never ever see him again. He had a lean, wiry build, and was always on the go, always moving around the market, lugging crates, talking to people, dealing with customers. I didn’t see him after he got too sick to work, and in some ways I’m glad I will always remember him fit, active and healthy. In his last couple of months he was very weak and frail, and he told M’s aunt T that he’d had enough and just wanted to die.
It was quite strange to be talking about funerals while all the children (six of them) ran around playing with wrapping paper, Flarp putty1 and what seemed like the entire contents of a toy shop. The youngest, a two year old, found such joy in continuously throwing his balloon up in the air and trying to catch it – he was wonderful to watch.
Now that I think about it, the children were the perfect antidote to all the sadness around the table – we laughed at their antics and occasionally joined in the games, and I think it helped me remember that life goes on.
1Brightly coloured gooey putty that comes in a tiny plastic cannister (about the size of a film cannister actually) that you are supposed to poke your fingers into – all sorts of weird and wonderful noises are produced by the putty. I feel I had a deprived childhood – we didn’t have farting goo when I was a kid!
technorati tags: death, illness, meaning-of-life