kaberett | Your irregular but inevitable "fuck cancer" post

Longstanding family friend - one of my mum's best friends for decades - is not going to be with us much longer; we weren't close but he's always been a fixture and I am fond of the guy. He's a good man and it's a shit way to go. So... I'm going to be a bit wobbly, I suspect. (And rearranging my lab schedule to fit in the funeral, if considered appropriate.)

(That makes two of her people this year. How do I share the memories of these men with you, these men who were human and flawed and almost always one step removed from me and nonetheless important? I will try, I think, like this: Andy was, as best I recall, the first person ever to say that my poetry was good, and to ask if I was considering submitting for publication; Jake let me be slow and quiet and gentle with his dogs, and watched Ebony closely, and she let me hold one of her tiny squirmy eyes-still-shut legs-all-wonky puppies on my lap, and he was kind and impressed and let me practice commands on gun-dogs. On Christmas Eve every year a card would come through the door without a ring or knock & we'd listen for it in the interests of grabbing him and giving him a mince pie and a drink.)

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cosmolinguist

Oof, it was all of thirty seconds since the last time I said "fuck cancer" before I read this.

I have sadly-much experience with trying to explain to the people I know now the importance of people they've never met. It's never easy. Your vivid and evocative, and intriguing stories about them here are a great gift for you to be able to give these people.

kaberett

Andy was very senior at the Cambridge University Press; he hired my mum when she started there twenty, thirty years ago, and recommended her cameras and classical recordings, and insisted on showing her his holiday photographs every time he got back in spite of her need to actually get on with work. He said this thing about my stuff when I was about 13.