When I started this blog, it was largely for my own amusement, a diary of my outdoor activities, with the occasional rant, that perhaps some other like-minded folk would find interesting or amusing. I'm fairly certain that that's the way it will stay. However, something happened this week that I just can't get out out of my head, something I feel compelled to write about.
The BBC have broadcast, on a couple of a occasions, an interview with Joost van Westerhuizen, the former South African rugby player. Joost van Westerhuizen was one of the greatest sportsman of his time, who represented his country on 89 occasions, and was a powerful sportsman who played the game with great skill and athleticism, and, it has to be said, some devilment.
Three years ago he was diagnosed, at the age of 42, with Motor Neurone Disease, a hideous degenerative neurological condition, an illness that a few years back took the lives of two of my friends, Darren and Robbie. In the interview, he speaks eloquently and with great dignity about the disease and about his impending death.
That in itself would be heart-rending enough, were it not for the remarkable physical resemblance between Joost van Westerhuizen and my brother Lewis, who died from the disease last year. Lewis was a gentle man, who had just got his life back together after finally extracating himself from his hateful and deranged ex-wife, and the diagnosis came at the cruellest time, when he had once again found happines.
It's not just that they look so alike (both dark, handsome men, Lewis was one of those annoying blokes who actually got even better looking as he got older and more grey), it's the mannerisms and identical effects of the disease that took my breath away. The slight tilt when sitting in the wheelchair, the wasted, bony shoulders, the difficulty swallowing, the movement of the head with the sheer effort of talking, and most of all the slurred, barely coherent speech (the BBC actually used subtitles for the interview).
Watching the interview, I could have once again been at the nursing home where Lewis' life ended, desperately trying to understand the words that he struggled to say. Sadly, that's the memory of Lewis that is most clear in my mind, rather than the lovely, kind, laid back brother I should remember. My memory of my father, who died six months before Lewis, is similar. I should remember a strong, energetic man with a remarkable work ethic, but what's in my mind is a tired old man, rendered helpless by strokes, deafness and the gradual failure of his body.
In the interview here http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/24890861 Joost van Westerhuizen tells us that "there are two things that we humans take for granted, health and time". He's right. Nothing else matters. Everything else is trivial.
