Image © Jose & MidJourney
This one is a not an easy one. Probably not easy for many other people, I actually ask myself if I have the right to get into the topic at all. But I was touched, like many, by a letter that Simon Boas posted on the Jersey Evening Post, a love letter to life and to the living from someone dying of cancer. He first broke the news to all his friends and followers in September 2023, comparing what he would have to go through as a journey to the South Pole, in February 2024 he communicated that his situation had developed not necessarily to his advantage, and in May 2024 he shared what seems to be his last message stating that he’d hoped treatment would work, but his cancer hadn’t cooperated. There is no way I can describe the writing, you have to fill yourself with courage and read, the three letters, and you may end up reflecting like I am.
We’ve all had friends and family lost to cancer, the dark beast takes all indiscriminately, no matter the age, gender, race, and any other superfluous ways of cataloguing human beings, including our pets. Some survive it, and those stories are encouraging, but I don’t know about you, I feel most that get the diagnosis end up perishing. You may find the data, I don’t want to talk about data, I want to go back to the human being that wrote these stories, and other human beings that are faced with the prospect of having to write their last letter to friends and families.
I don’t know Simon, I didn’t read anything from Simon before his first post back in September, and I wasn’t connected on LinkedIn or following his work. Nevertheless, and when he talks about all the things he is happy to have achieved while he was healthy, I am sure I am not the only one that feels I should have known Simon, or at least known about Simon and his work. And it hit me that we are surrounded by millions of people doing incredible work, of whom we know nothing, expect when tragedy knocks at their door, many we never get to know their story, even after they are gone. Some could argue that this is life, we live, and we die. Others might argue that death, while natural and cruel, does not end it all, and I guess that is a matter of belief. Some might argue that death by cancer is no different than any other death, and that may be true, especially by those that lost loved ones to any kind of death. But I go back to Simon, and how he faces death, and how he embraces life and the living at the same time, and I guess that is what ended up touching so many. While his letters are certainly not the only ones by those that have to go through this unimaginable journey, these ones feel close, there is a distinct feeling that this could be me, you. And when that thought hits you, you end up thinking how you would face a diagnosis like this, how would you say goodbye, how elegantly would you recognize others, how eloquently you would be able to share it, and would it matter. For so many that die from cancer and have no writing skills like Simon, not even a life in the limelight, a valuable life at the service of others, their deaths are as relevant and meaningful, and Simon writes in their name also. Pause to breath. Celebrate life. Live.