2012 In memoriam

[Paul S]

Who did you lose during 2012? It doesn't have to be anyone famous, just people you knew and cared about.

The first one I'll name is The Exploding Vole, better known as David Wangerin. I never met him, but felt like I knew him from his posts over the years.

A friend called Phil also died in July this year. I knew him from rugby and I went to school with his daughter who was murdered. Her story is a terrible one. She wanted to travel the world but tried to smuggle drugs into the UAE and got caught. She did 2.5 years of a 25 year prison snetence in a womens prison in UAE before her family were able to buy her out. Instead of doing a degree at Brighton Uni she instead left to travel the World again and ended up being murdered in India in an apparent row over drugs. I later found out she actually went out there to confront the people who set her up. (BBC report here)

Phil never receovered from losing his daughter and blamed himself as he was very much into waccy baccy and drinking. Sadly his body couldn't cope with the drinking and smoking anymore and he was called in July to be reunited with his daughter. RIP Phil

[Bored Of Education]

2012 In memoriam

It sounds glib but, attending church every week, there are a lot of the older folk who go and it becomes routine in a way. They always disappear, only to be brought up in occasional notice or prayer request about how they are in or out of hospital. There then is an announcement that they have died and the funeral is whenever. THey have always had a good innings, it is hardly a surprise but it does make you suddenly miss them.

More poignantly, perhaps, is that we lost a friend of ours who, more or less, ensured that my wife stayed in London after being dumped almost immediately by the boyfriend she moved up with. When we first started going out, my wife was staying there and we lived together in our friend's house for a year or two.

The thing is that my friend was a drinker then but we all were. The difference was that she never stopped and became more and more a liability. She met again and married the love of her life but, within a couple of years, had split up from him, lost her job then her house all through her increasing drinking and chaotic behaviour.

She ended up with another friend who was also an alcoholic and, it has be said, not a particularly nice character. They also split up after he lost his house and job and ended up dying in Costa Rica. Our friend end up renting a couple of places and then moved near her sisters in Hemel Hempstead. I saw her about a year ago at a party and, of course, she was pissed but really nice company. We always knew that the drink would get her but was quite surprised to hear, a month or two ago, that she was on a life support machine and, the next day, got a phone call to say they turned it off. She was 59

My wife met her at 18, when she was vulnerable, and was given a home by her only having known her for a week at most. It is not an exaggeration to say that, without her, we wouldn't be together. We used to feel a touch guilty that, as our youthful heavy drinking subsided, we became distant from her. Mind you, as anyone who knows an alcoholic knows, there is not much you can do for them if they don't want to change and, if losing a husband, jobs and your home doesn't change you, words from friends won't, much as we tried this.

Having seen a couple of people the day before they died, one from alcoholism, I am glad I didn't see here towards the end. We have a lovely picture of a younger, smiling, pretty, possibly still pissed her on the front of her funeral order of service and I prefer to remember her like that and when I last say her at the party a year ago. She was never going to end up getting remembered in church notices at a grand old age but still 59.

[Femme Folle]

2012 In memoriam

Wow, that's one of those stories you see on TV. Poor Phil--RIP.

[Paul S]

2012 In memoriam

Having seen a couple of people the day before they died, one from alcoholism, I am glad I didn't see her towards the end.

I think watching someone die from drink is possibly one of the worst things that can happen. You know it's killing them, they know it's killing them, but they still don't care. I lost a friend about 6-7 years ago through drink. He was a chef in the restaurant car on the steam railway I volunteered on and he just drank and drank and drank. Then one day he sat in his back garden and had a stroke down the side of his face - they didn't find him until the next day. He was rushed into hospital where he had another stroke and was then finished off by pneumonia. If he hadn't been drunk everyday he would still be with us.

[Bored Of Education]

2012 In memoriam

I am not sure that they 'don't care' as such. I mean, I suppose they don't but it isn't a conscious decision not to care and they do have regular moments of caring about what damage they are doing to themselves, their families etc but it's the illness that controls them.

It is very hard, however much experience of people in these situations, to get our heads around these issues if we don't suffer from them. I remember when I first met someone who was anorexic and it was a real eye-opener that it wasn't that they just didn't eat enough. Same with realising that alcoholics don't just drink too much, depressives aren't just sad all the time, there is a real difference in the way their brains work.

[KGR]

2012 In memoriam

I never that part of the extended family, but my mother-in-law's uncle and nephew died within days of each other in April 2012. The nephew's demise was a particularly upsetting and tragic end.

My wife and I have talked about the mother-in-law's auntie, Sylvia (see story), who lost her husband and her son at the age of nearly 80.

I am lucky that this is the closest I have come to death for many years, with grandparents long gone.

[JVL]

2012 In memoriam

March 2012 - my cousin was shot dead outside his house in South Africa. Pete was my 'favourite cousin', the one I was closest to when growing up and of course the one who moved furthest away. He'd moved to Johannesburg 15 years ago after meeting his wife while she was working in England.
He had already nearly died after blacking out at the wheel on his way home from work and driving head-on into a motorway bridge support. That must have been 10 years ago now, the doctors had to cut out part of his brain to relieve the pressure, it was the only way to ensure he could survive. Unfortunately, that was the part of his brain that controlled reason and aggression, and when he stopped taking the medication, well let's just say his marriage didn't survive the consequences.
He seemed to be getting his life back together though, and was engaged again. After going out for a meal with his fiancee, they were confronted by armed men outside his house. Pete threw them the car keys as demanded, they pistol-whipped his fiancee and shot him in the chest. The burnt-out car was found by police one day later.

My Nan died of cancer in July. She was 88 years old and still knocking back a glass or two of wine and going on her day trips with the Iver Heath ladies until a couple of months before the end. Just a shame she didn't hang around long enough for us to tell her that she'd be a great-grandmother this summer.

And then my Dad's cousin succumbed to various forms of intestinal cancer just before Christmas. Headed up to Antwerp for that one with my Mum and my aunt to represent the English side of the family and was amazed to see over 300 people crammed into the church for the service - a lovely guy who will be sadly missed in his local community. And the ceremony went off without a hitch, which should be no surprise as he was an undertaker by trade...

Anyway, pretty glad to see the back of that year and 2013 is going to be a whole lot brighter with the arrival of JVL junior.

[WOM]

2012 In memoriam

Congrats to you both, JVL.

[linus]

2012 In memoriam

I lost my dad last year almost to the day. He was 80, and had at least two close calls, the first time with a heart attack in 1985, when he had a quadruple bypass.

He went the right way, while napping on his couch in front of the fireplace, watching a football game.