My Daffodil

I've just seen the Marie Curie advert on the TV, so thought I'd share with you who my daffodil is for.

The daffodil is quite special to me anyway, as not only is it the emblem of the Marie Curie campaign, but also the flower of Wales.  Although I am not actually Welsh, I am of Welsh decendency, and my family is predominantly Welsh.  One of my cousins also once granted me Honorary Welsh status (Cheers Jonj!).

As a family, we also now have cause to be extremely grateful to Marie Curie, and the amazing nurses at the Penarth Hospice (in Wales) for the care and support they recently gave to my cousin H and his family.

Which brings me to who my daffodil is for.  My cousin H is almost exactly a year younger than me (363 days to be precise), and when we were children I spent most of my summers in Wales, and most of these with Hywel and his sister S.  I became close to both of them, and love them both to pieces.  However as we got older, inevitably, we lost touch.  I stopped spending my summers in Wales once I started to work, and things drifted.

I'm happy to say though, that largely thanks to Facebook, I was back in touch with H over the last couple of years.  I know some people condemn social network sites, and blame them for many of societies evils.  However for this one thing alone I will always be grateful to Facebook! Anyway I digress.

H was a very fit and healthy young man up until around June last year (2010), he ran marathons and climbed mountains for kicks.  He ran the London Marathon in April last year, and less than a year later he was gone.  He leaves behind a 13 year old son, who is the absolute image of his father.  As long as B is on this earth you will never be gone Hywel!  With his long term partner D, he had even climbed to Mount Everest Base Camp.

In June H's health started to deteriorate, and eventually at the end of September he was given the news that he had cancer of the oesophageous, which had spead to his liver and lungs.  This was when he first visited the Marie Curie hospice.  The care he recieved was fantastic, but more importantly he felt safe there.  They helped with his weight loss and his medication, so he was ready to start his chemo.  At first he reponded well to the chemo, and started to improve.  Unfortunately he developed a couple of infections, which threw out his chemo schedule, and he deteriorated frighteningly quickly.

H and his long term partner D married just before Christmas, and a few days later he went back to the hospice.  He went home briefly on Christmas Day, but this was the last time he was at home.  He had shared with his nearest and dearest that when the time came he wanted it to be at the Marie Curie hospice, and he got his wish, when he passed away on January 14th.

H was an inspirational and brave man!  He had planned and paid for his own funeral.  It was such a fitting tribute to him, and celebration of his life.  During his life he had raised money for both Alzheimers and make a Wish, and I'm sure if he had beaten this his next marathon would have been for Marie Curie!  In the end H had so little time, and was not able to do so many of the things on his wish list.

Thanks to the one of the nurses at the hospice, and a gentleman called Richard Parks doing the 737 Challenge, H is now going to a place he always dreamed of going.  Some of his ashes are being scattered at the top of one of the worlds highest mountains.  So he will spend the rest of eternity on top of the world.  There is no more fitting place for such a top bloke!

I'm wearing my daffodil for

Hywel Jenkins 1972 - 2011 Free to explore!