Such a Blink

This Friday, August 28 is the Cancer Society’s Daffodil Day, This year, as for the past eight years, I’ll be wearing a daffodil for one of my favourite people ever, my uncle, who lost his battle with cancer in 2006.

It is starting to sound like a long time ago now, but it feels like such a blink. At family gatherings, he is still included, through anecdotes, private jokes and items on the menu. I will, forever, when making BLT’s on the BBQ, add the lettuce THEN toast everything together. Sure, the lettuce wilts a bit, but it inspires many a giggle. Every time he did it, someone would remark that ‘lettuce should never go on a BBQ,’ as if a man with an eye for detail like his would miss something so obvious – little did they know it’s delicious!

When my daughter wanders around absentmindedly crunching on a piece of uncooked spaghetti, I smile – I know where she got that habit from.

At one of my favourite restaurants, Prego, I remember being 13 years old and staying with my uncle and aunt. When we got there, I commented that is was my first time there, whereupon he launched into a hilarious diatribe about how it was tantamount to ‘child abuse’ that my parents had never provided me with the experience. Never mind that we didn’t even live in Auckland…

Cancer is no fun at all, and his diagnosis and subsequent fight changed all of us. Cancer happened to other families, not us. Then, despite the dire statistics, we all believed that if anyone could pull off the impossible and beat it, it was him.

Sadly, this was one situation he couldn’t charm, negotiate, work or magic his way out of. What he did do, was remain classy, fun, engaged and positive, as much as was humanly possible, and then some. Like everyone who has lost someone to cancer, I’m equally mad and sad – what a terrible waste of a fine human being. Why weren’t there more dinners, more glasses of wine, more songs more excellent advice and more raging political debates?

Feel free to share your stories this week, and wear your daffodils proudly!