Archives: dying

How do we mourn the loss of a friend?

How do we explain the inexplicable?

Grief’s many forms come to us unexplained, uncontrolled and unblemished – pure, raw and all-encompassing.

My instinct is to write, to share my experience, perhaps in the vain hope that catharsis will come through the words on the screen.

But now as I sit and write, as I try to find the words, wait for them to flow, they refuse to come.

You died on Boxing Day. I’ve been friends with your family through your sister since before my transplant when she set up an organ donation campaign at Durham University and included me in it.

I’ve shared the peaks and troughs of life with all of you over the last seven years of friendship – through the highs of getting married to the lows of losing loved ones – and your death is one of the toughest.

I try to smile. I try to remember the wonderful times we shared, like our mini-tour of Hadrian’s Wall this summer. I try to remember the laughs, the fun, the frivolity.

But grief doesn’t always give us what we want.

Instead I’m left thinking of the hole you’re leaving in your family, a family who have had to endure too much. A family of such belief and faith and certainty that I don’t understand the trials they are being sent. A family of such closeness, such togetherness, that losing another member of it is too much for anyone to contemplate.

At the same time, though, it’s hard not to feel a sense of wonderful gratitude.

I’m grateful to have known you, sir. I’m grateful to have known your wit, your views, your humour, your idiosyncrasies, the broadest of smiles, the most contemplative of minds. I’m grateful to have had chance to discuss the good and bad bits of new Doctor Who episodes as they were broadcast, grateful to have understood your passions and your passionate dislikes and everything that made you the man I knew.

Most of all, I’m grateful to the wonderful donor and their family who, when all else was falling in around them, took the bravest decision of all to grant the gift of life to a then-14-year-old boy whose heart was failing. I’m grateful that your family had nine more years to enjoy their son and brother. I’m grateful that you lived to meet your baby brother, who also left us too soon. I’m grateful that you were given enough time for me to meet you, to get to know you and to consider you a friend.

There is no escaping the sadness that your death brings, the black cloud of disbelieving grief that just wants you to drop a sarcastic comment on my Facebook status update one more time. There is no escaping the fear, the knowledge of the inevitability of something similar happening to me, that comes with transplant-related deaths. There is no escaping the reality that we’ll never hear you laugh again.

But there is no escaping the gratitude we all feel to have had our lives blessed by your presence.

And that’s what I’m going to cling to.

Gareth, sir, look after Theo, keep an eye on us and lie peacefully in the knowledge that you made our lives all the better for knowing you. Thank you.

They say ignorance is bliss and, quite often, I’m inclined to agree.

Last Friday, we had the misfortune of attending the funeral of the baby boy of a very close friend of ours. He lived a matter of hours and the beautiful, emotional service proved – if there were ever any doubt – that there is little in life more powerfully heart-wrenching than the sight of a coffin that can be carried by one person.

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Monday was a day of emotions like no other.

On the one hand, my friend and ally in many things, Tor, finally received the life-saving transplant she’s been waiting over 4 years for.  She can finally stop waiting and start the long journey into her new life.

No sooner had the emotions begun to settle than I heard that my friend and inspiration to many, Rachael, was preparing her final goodbyes, having been told by the doctor that there is nothing more they can do.

Tor always staggered me with her courage, fortitude and stubborn refusal to let CF beat her, reminding me in so many ways of the wonderful Jess, who we lost just days after her long-awaited transplant last year.  Tor has fought and battled and grappled with everything life has chosen to fling at her over the last four years – and throughout her life before that – and faced it with a characteristic smile, passion and commitment to not letting it get in the way.

Rachy has inspired many people, often first to lend support to people going through their own tough times, even as her transplant turned against her and her lungs deteriorated just 3 months after being given her second chance.  Always open, honest and available to all her friends, she humbles us all with her humility and love.

Rachy is all the more remarkable for having posted on her blog on Sunday a simple picture and the words

Rachael Wakefield, a life lived surrounded by love, with my second chance of life time is now precious, I’d like to thank all and everyone for your continued support, love to you all xxx Rachy xxx

Her quiet dignity in saying her goodbyes and inviting those of her friends and followers has seen her Facebook page deluged with outpourings of love and grief filled with the same passionate fervour as Tor’s has been with messages of excitement and prayers of hope.

What’s made this week so hard is that both of these women are at once utterly, beautifully unique, yet sadly not alone.

Every day we lose 3 people waiting for transplants in this country, mostly for the simple reason that not enough organs are available for transplant. If you haven’t already, you need to sign the organ donor register now.

It’s depressingly simple – taking less than 2 minutes and but a few clicks – but far too few people have done it.  No one like Tor should have to wait 4 years to be given a second chance at life.

Although we all know the risks going in to transplant, and although many of us have watched Rachy’s progress with a “There but for the grace of God go I” viewpoint, I know Rachy wouldn’t have traded a second of the post-transplant life had she known what lay in store.

I’ve always said I wanted six months of a better life post-transplant and I’d be happy. That a chance to play football with my Godsons, to run around in the garden, to do something without calculating how much oxygen I’d need to take would be enough for me.

I’ve been blessed with almost 4 years of new life and I thank my donor and their family for it every day. And I’m saddened every day for those who have never had the chance Rachael, or Tor, or I have had.

Don’t let life pass you by. Take it, seize it, make the very most of it. And please, once your done, pass your organs on.