Early this morning, around 2:30, at Clare Holland House, the local hospice, just over 24 hours after my father-in-law died there, a friend's husband also passed away there.
He was only in his early 50s and was cruelly taken by the end results an aggressive cancer of his mouth/neck. The cancer had started as a persistent mouth ulcer which he had initially ignored, "it's only a mouth ulcer", that didn't heal. Multiple surgeries, chemo and radiotherapy failed to stop the progression. Odd the way that the cancer started at all as he wasn't a smoker.
I had only met him a few times and I didn't know him well.
He was an astronomer based at the Australian National University in Canberra and prior to falling sick spent a lot of time overseas at some of the world's major radio and optical telescopes.
His wife, whom I know better, like a lot and consider another of my many adopted sisters, is an IT systems architect and is a close friend and occasional work colleague of my wife, The Little Worker.
This news coming in top of the other death is a blow. We're still trying to come to terms with our family's tragedy then to be smacked in the gut with this one is terrible. The emotional drain is hard to bear.
As for death coming in threes... I'm hoping that Leonard Nimoy's passing last Friday was the first of the triplet.
Live long and prosper
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