Mjallby hopeful of Samaras stay

Published January 11, 2011

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not exactly a ‘feelgood’ december subject, but given the piece of work connected to this one:

www.flickr.com/photos/the-g-uk/5227207018/in/photostream/

and having had some direct experience of the disease and its effects, i felt strangely compelled to write a few words.

long, unfocused and rambling though the following text certainly is, i offer it in the hope it may interest.

in the companion piece there is a link to a quite astonishing interview given by christopher hitchens to jeremy paxman.

within this interview, hitchens discusses his personal view of the disease that is 95% certain to kill him within the next five years [absolute best estimate – only 5% with the same cancer as hitch live for another five years].

as ever with hitchens, this is an original and engaging view, and one well worth watching the interview to hear.

to paraphrase, hitchens claims that it serves no good purpose to make cancer the ‘disease of diseases’.

to see it as utterly intractable and unbeatable.

[do watch the interview, i don’t want to expand on hitchens opinions too much here].

unlike hitch, i see a reason for the way we treat cancer as the ‘ultimate’ disease.

this reason is mathematical.

it is estimated that one third of people [in my nation certainly] will contract some form of cancer in their lifetime.

that translates to roughly 33%.

thus, in a crowd of 100,000 people, 33,000 [give or take] will contract some form of cancer in their lifetime.

this is a very significant percentage indeed.

thus our understandable fear.

my father was one of the 33%.

he was diagnosed with cancer of the colon, five years after that diagnosis, he was dead.

slowly but inexorably, the cancer metastasised from the colon first into his liver, then into his bones.

he was 55 years old when he died.

the hitchens interview made me consider those five years.

of course, not for the first [nor indeed the last] time.

i thought about how best to describe that protracted and painful period of illness for the three people directly involved; my father, my mother and myself.

i decided upon ‘waking dream’.

many people may be surprised at my word choice.

many people would automatically have expected me to use the word ‘nightmare’.

on consideration, i decided against using the word.

why?

because there are moments of reprieve, there are moments of hope.

of course, these moments [unless fulfilled] are so often simply one more ugly aspect of a disease that serves to make a mockery of life itself.

cancer is the devil’s jester.

the disease taunts and teases all who are touched by it.

this ability to offer seemingly substantive hope then remove it utterly capriciously is an aspect of cancer that renders it at once entirely destructive and also hideously insidious.

i also began to think about those who the disease leaves behind.

in a way, cancer’s living victims.

subsequent to my fathers death, i made a concerted effort to ‘walk up’ to the idea that he had died and examine this event personally, philosophically and emotionally.

i wanted to try to somehow ‘fit’ this utterly tragic event into my life.

if this makes considering my fathers passing sound like a conceptual ‘exercise’, believe me when i say it certainly was not.

it was emotionally and psychologically demanding.

nevertheless, i felt it was an issue that had to be attended to as soon as was possible.

after some time, i felt that i had come to something of an understanding; i felt that i could consider this devastating event in such a way as to give myself some kind of personal peace [though one never forgets].

my mother behaved in exactly the opposite way.

in considering my fathers death, i felt that i, quite quickly, came to see that this was simply a roll of the dice [though of course, my father’s smoking loaded the dice somewhat].

that this was simply the work of blind fate.

that there was not, nor will there ever be, ‘somebody to blame’.

my mother did not want to consider the situation, she only wished to apportion blame.

the level of bitterness and blind rage that she felt was almost tangible.

this had an astonishingly detrimental effect with regard to her behaviour toward family and friends.

she proceeded to construct a ‘league table’ of pain and placed my father at the very top.

thus, in her mourning, nobody, but nobody was suffering, nor had ever suffered, more than she was.

after some time. i finally felt i had to confront my mother.

i tried to explain that, tragic as it was for us, my father’s illness and death was a result of fate.

to explain that fate was entirely blind, and that this wretched disease killed good people as well as bad.

cancer lacks any judgement.

to explain that [once again], there was not, nor would there ever be, ‘somebody to blame’.

of course, in her bitterness and ire, she accused me of coldness and lack of emotion.

this made me sad.

if i may digress slightly here.

i am, in no uncertain terms, my father’s son.

i am almost entirely unlike my mother.

not wishing to belittle her at all, she was not, in any way whatsoever, as intellectually capable as my father.

though she had [and still has] incredible qualities that counteracted this imbalance.

try as she might [and i believe she did] she could not come to terms with my father’s death in a way that would offer her some peace, and relieve her of the damaging bitterness and anger that consumed her.

and as so many do in so many similar situations, she looked around for a whipping post.

cue the son. cue me.

i was the only person she could direct her anger and bitterness toward.

this affected our relationship for some years.

my mother is certainly in a better place now, but that has much more to do with time than contemplation.

the inability to come to terms with the death of a loved one, the anger and biterness that inability brings forth [anger and biterness demanding an outlet, anger and bitterness demanding the ‘pound of flesh’ in return for the dead] is corrosive and damaging not only to the holder of these painful emotions, but to those whom they love.

now i must apologise.

there is no denouement here, no punchline, no sagacious advice that will assist you should you find yourself dealing with a similar situation.

as mentioned, after watching the hitch interview [thank you jules], i felt strangely compelled to write something regarding the illness and death of my father.

in this instance, the fact that there is little structure to that which i have written does not overly concern me, this was an excercise that was almost ‘stream of consciousness’.

i must also apologise if this sounds like some mawkish appeal suggesting that i was treated badly.

nothing could be further from the truth.

i accept my mothers need to release what needed to be released, and to use me as the conduit.

as hard as this was, i could somewhat understand the process she was undergoing, even if she could not.

enough!

i hope any who have read this far have found some of the words, at best, interesting; and that most of the words, at worst, offered no boredom.

in making some kind of short ‘closing statement’, i have first to say that it is entirely and utterly impossible to fully ‘intellectualise’ cancer.

nor would this be a necessarily good thing.

the disease leaves an intense emotional aftertaste that no amount of contemplation can wash away.

as clichéd as it may sound, in these situations, if time does not necessarily succeed in healing, then it certainly ameliorates.

forgive my ramblings.

and most importantly…….

to everyone who has suffered [and is still suffering] bereavement.
to everyone who is at this moment struggling with the illness of a loved one or friend.

may all go as well as it possibly can for yourselves and those whom you love that are unwell.

www.cancerresearchuk.org/

www.macmillan.org.uk/Home.aspx

www.bcrfcure.org/

www.prostate-cancer.org.uk/

www.mariecurie.org.uk/

www.aicr.org/site/PageServer

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Cancer_Society

Mjallby hopeful of Samaras stay
Celtic assistant manager Johan Mjallby is hopeful that Old Firm hero Georgios Samaras will remain at Parkhead beyond the end of the season. The striker’s current contract is set to expire this summer and reports suggest he has rejected a 12-month extension because he was seeking a longer deal.
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Posted in Music Contract Information | Tagged hopeful, Mjallby, Samaras, stay