The Reports of My Demise....

No - this isn't me. It's a guy called Adrian Dewey who did the Vatternrundan with me over the summer. Adrian was the same age as me - and like me, was recovering from cancer. Unfortunately he had a recurrence of his Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in August and he died last week. My sympathies to his family - Adrian and I chatted on the ride a couple of times as we were amongst the oldest and slowest in our group! He was a nice guy. Cancer sucks.

The other upsetting thing that happened was that one of the other guys on the ride mistook Adrian for me ( you can see the resemblance) and thought I'd died! He wrote the following:

"He was a lovely bloke and was so overjoyed with his achievement that he was taking pictures left right and centre. I think we can say that he brought something to our lives, but am equally certain that we accompanied him on one of the absolute highlights of his life, too. So I guess we get a pat on the back for that... "

When I first read this I was furious that someone could be so crass and stupid (he has since apologised) but I also felt invaded in a way. Someone I hardly knew had chosen to do this assessment of me and my life. How dare he?!

I've calmed down a bit now and can accept that it was a mistake. But it has made me think about how I would want to be remembered. Hopefully this won't be for a long while and for something more than this....