What is life without it’s lessons, lessons that we all must learn, go through, bare? How would we ever know true happiness without true saddness?

Sometimes I sit here and ponder this fact of life, even more so these days I find myself wondering at the unfairness of life and whether it is unfair indeed or rather giving… Strange thought for a young soul but then it is so.

A friend of mine (30) went to the doctor in July because he had a lump in his thigh, it was presumed a soccer injury that never went away. The doctor sent him away and told him to come back in a couple of weeks if it didn’t get better. After a couple of weeks he went back showing the doctor that it had gotten worse. The doctor then decided to do some tests and found that my friend had Lymphnode cancer, he was immediately operated on and further tests were done. They gave him the all clear with regular appointments for check ups.

A month later, in September he went in for another operation, they had found further lymph cancer. In October he started to have a sore neck and had pain in his stomach, he went back and after further tests found that the cancer had spread to his third vertebrae and liver. They operated immediately joining the second and third vertabrae, putting two metal rods on each side of his neck to keep it up right.

I went to go visit him in hospital when I got here, I walked into the hospital room and just looked at him with a big smile on my face, he opened his arms and hugged me. I was so shocked, the guy had had major 6 hour surgery on the friday and not 4 days later he was sitting there discussing his plans to travel the world next year. He told me he wasn’t going to give in, not going to give up the fight. He knows he has the cancer and will always have it but he is never giving up the fight.

He was released from hospital the following day and returned the following week for chemo on his liver. He has now been released from hospital with the doctors saying that they can not do more for him, the cancer has spread to his spinal column, pelvis and every where else it could spread to, they have given him a maximum of 3 weeks to live.

He is now returning to South Africa with his mother to live out his dying days at the tender age of 30 but before he goes he has to say goodbye to his girlfriend who will be staying behind in the UK, saying bye knowing that they will never see each other again. My heart is broken that such an amazing and inspirational friend is leaving this world an emptier place.

The message within these words is that you never know what may happen, you never know what the next day will bring, don’t forget to live, don’t forget to show your love, don’t forget to give back to the world… My friend has had a full life, he has lived all over the world, experienced things that most people would never have the opportunity of doing.

His parting words to me were… don’t be sad, live and don’t forget…