January is a shit month. I always enter into January with renewed optimism, but one old cliché often leads to another and before long disillusionment has taken over. The prime reason is because January has a habit of killing people off faster than the plague. I normally expect to hear about elderly grandparents or relatives kicking the bucket, but in the last month, there have been 5 deaths I have heard about and the eldest person was the fella whose funeral I was at last Friday - he was 55.
I had the day off last Friday, specifically for Paul's funeral. On this day, my mate Dez (not that one) was attending the funeral for an acquaintance of mine called Angela. She had dropped dead of a massive brain embolism - she was 42, she had 3 young children and a husband. Also on this day, a colleague of mine, John, arrived at the Northampton office for work as usual, within a few hours he was being rushed to hospital after collapsing. It was a massive stroke and he died the following day... I arrived at work Monday, ignorant of the fact. Later that day, I was visiting one of my clients; we were talking about a local gang he'd been having problems with. The leader of this gang was a young guy I had worked with last year and I told my new lad that I would either have a word with him or one with his mother, Tina. She died just before Christmas - she was 36. I was stunned.
The week didn't get much better; one of my good friends and colleagues has been diagnosed with lymphoma - she could be off sick for 18 months if the recovery is full; alternatively, she may never come back...
January has brought far too many deaths (or the shadow of death) to people I know or love. It's a shame it can't be abolished... but that won't really do any good now would it.
I suppose it's something that we grow to realise - the older we get there's more chance of people we know dying.
On Sunday, I will celebrate the birth of February and say good riddance to another January many people will want to forget.
Get well soon, Jodi
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I met a guy called Mark McGregor 21 years ago. He worked with Clare about three days after we arrived in Australia and he instantly reminded me of you.
ReplyDeleteMark lives across the road so we get to see a lot of him now, but he has had a similar year to how you describe January.
Maybe you are right about getting to that age.
Keep your chin up mate - good to see you writing again.