As you do, I like to keep an eye on news from various countries I have a connection with.In this context, I saw, yesterday, a news item that Melbourne FC President Jim Stynes was stepping down although it now appears he's 'temporarily stepping aside'.
To 99.9% of people reading this - eh? Jim who?
What has made me launch into print here is that Jim Stynes has made the discovery that he has cancer and it takes someone you've known and had affection for to really bring it home. Please indulge me here.
When I was gamesmaster/sportsmaster at a school in Australia, I phoned associations of many different sports to send someone out to demonstrate their sport in a series of visits. Jim Stynes represented the AFL and I'm proud to say that I've tackled him in a demo to the kids he was giving. He didn't know that tackling was my job in rugby and I didn't know how damned big and solid he was.
We once had a drink at the union bar at university and he came across as an extremely personable and genuine man. His performances on the playing field were always consistently good, sometimes great and he is rightly a legend downunder and back in his native Ireland, where he had been a top Gaelic footballer.
A short time back, having achieved all that, he discovered a polyp on his back. It wasn't just in one place.
Life is so cruel, so unfair. It's a bastard, in fact.
Life can be that. There are days that I'm furious at what seems so unfair and rant "life's a bitch, then you die". Then other days I'm so thankful that there has been grace in someone's life.
ReplyDeleteWe've just had a young friend fall in a rockclimbing related accident; he's now partially paralyzed. There is hope that he will regain some function, however.
People I know have died from cancer and some have survived it, including myself (touch wood).
I consider it a miracle that I survived a 110 mph impact car smash; and not only that, walked away (albeit on crutches), having spent only six hours in the ER, yet I hear of less impact greater injury stories.
Life just does not make sense sometimes. Whether you believe in G-d or not. Sometimes the questioning of things is worse if you do.
I'm so sorry that you are saddened by this news, James. My hope is that they will be able to treat him effectively; and, that he will be allowed more time on this earth to be with his loved ones.
My grandmo0ther was ravanged and then succumbed to cancer when I was 16. It is a nhorrendous,lingering disease.
ReplyDeleteChills the blood, any mention of the 'crab' doesn't it? Bad news.
ReplyDeleteJust recovered from a cancer scare (involving a year's wait for final diagnosis) myself when best beloved turned out to be in final furlong (died less than 3/12 later). Then I had another scare, 18 months later - now OK, apparently. Why him? Why me? Why not?
Life is essentially unfair, random - all of that - and no amount of glib, self-helpery can alter that fact.
Sorry for the suffering of all concerned, and sympathy for their/your pain.
Yes, we play with the cards dealt to us. Cliched but cliches are often based on truths.
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