Every so often, I think of death. Perhaps as I get older, itās my mind trying to game-play what the end will be like. Often, I envisage DOOM - blackness, nothingness, the feeling like youāre about to tip out of a fairground ride. And I bring myself back from the abyss with the knowledge that actually, death and heaven involves eating Philadelphia on a cloud with Jesus, while a bunch of angels feed God grapes.
I know about death. When I did ayahuasca a few years ago, I died. I drowned in a pool of mud, felt myself suffocate and felt the doom spread through my brain. It was fucking horrid - compounded by the fact that in real life, Iād poured a bucket of my own black sick over my head. And then, I was reborn and Iāve never felt such an intense lightness in my life, like I had the sun shining out of my brain and heart. That moment changed me - I see the world in a different way. But as with all good things, the magic does start to wear off with years of incessant bloody Teams meetings and hen party WhatsApp groups.
But the point is, deathās a scary thing, even if youāve looked it in the face. If you see the number of plants I make my husband eat every week and the number of active minutes we clock, youāll see that I am very much up for staying at this party for as many years as poss. As we all know, you can do everything right and your cab still turns up horrifically early - so nothingās guaranteed.
And in the past week, Iāve heard the stories of two people for whom their rides are coming decades before they should. The first is Nat Dyer, an ultramarathon runner currently blowing his trumpet on the front cover of Runnerās World. Natās run all over the place but completed an especially bonkers solo mission from Harwich (Essex coast) to Tower Hill - a cool 100 miler. With stage four bowel cancer.
Nat and I have met a couple of times (he and my mum play in the same wind band) and talked about running but I only found out about his condition relatively recently. Iād assumed someone with stage 4 cancer would be at home, depressed, angry - not eating cake and cracking jokes as he seems to. This weekend, youāll find him running the London Marathon while playing his trombone (I believe he now has cancerous bits in his lungs).
I donāt know if youāve ever run a marathon but I have and the thought of blowing a raspberry after 20 miles makes me want to pass out, let alone play an actual brass instrument. But such is Natās energy and tenacity; he could sit down and let events take him over but heās doing things 99% of fully healthy people could only dream of.
Iād been reading his (extremely well-written) story before heading out for my own Sunday 10K. As usual, I was plugged into Radio 4ās Broadcasting House, when an item moved me to tears. Jogging up the Tottenham tow path, I listened to Simon Boas read out his letter to the Jersey Evening Post. I think his letter must have gone bonkers at the local and picked up by a clever Beeb producer who then got Simon to read it live on air. Iād probably have cried reading it, let alone hearing his voice.
āThe prognosis is not quite āDonāt buy any green bananasā, but itās pretty close to āDonāt start any long booksā,ā he said of his post-chemo throat cancer situation. And then he went on to share three thoughts heās had again and again. The first was that heās lived a charmed life (heās the director of the Jersey Overseas Aid Commission so has spent his career raising money and personally delivering billions of overseas aid). Heās climbed pyramids, seen whales, been shot in the leg and even, alarmingly, pulled one of his own teeth out. āMost of all, I have loved and been loved. Iām cocooned in the stuff; my cup overfloweth.ā Not bloody bad for a dude in his 40s!
Then he went on to say that we donāt know if thereās a God or not but itās definitely true that weāre survived by love. But it was his final point that really got me - about how being alive is like having won the craziest lottery ever. Any tiny change to our conception and we wouldnāt be here; the improbability of us being here is staggering, let alone the good luck most of us have to live in relative peace, have access to water etc.
āSo if I whine that my life will have been shorter than many modern peopleās I am massively missing the point. Iāve existed for 46 years. Itās as churlish as winning the Ā£92m Euromillions jackpot and then complaining bitterly when you discover that thereās another winning ticket and youāll only get half the money.ā
Well, youāve got to read the piece. But by this point, I was a mess. This man, whoās life is coming to an end, is so full of love and gratitude that there seems to be no room for āitās not fairā.
Itās sappy to say but Hugh Grant was right in the credits for Love actually; when people are dying, they donāt have messages of remorse or hate - they only talk about love.
All through Monday, my brain was saturated by these stories, and then I went to the gym. I was cycling down my road when there he was - Nat Dyer. Trombone case slung across his back, he was walking down the canal, miles from where he lives. I had to stop him and tell him that his front cover splash was incredible and he explained that he was killing time between gigs and that as he was fighting off a cold, he was getting in the miles through walking instead. I was struck by how chilled and happy he seemed. If I had to kill two hours between two gruesomely long bus journeys by walking, Iād be fuming. He seemed happy to be on his feet, taking in the air.
I took seeing Nat as a sign. Iām 34 - not that much younger than him. Youāve got no idea whatās around the corner but fundamentally, youāve got to keep on moving and spreading bits of joy.
Fab as always š