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On the train ride home last night I sat down looking at all the passengers. I wondered who among them were good people, who'd lived good lives. Had everyone made good choices and lived well? I, irrationally I know, found myself resenting them being there, riding the train with me, being able to just ... be.

I realised that after living a lifetime without loss, over the past 5 years my mother has lost her dearest friend to ovarian cancer. She was in her early 50's, married to the same man since her teens and a mother to teenage boys. Within the last 3 months my father lost his best friend and cousin to stomach cancer. He was married for over 60 years, father to five, grandfather and great grandfather to more than I can count.

Last year a dear friend's father was diagnosed with melanoma cancer and lost his battle only a few short months later. A dear friend at work, her mother beat breast cancer some 15 years go, but now at the age of 62, has liver and numerous secondary cancers.

I cry for those lost, for those who have lost those they love most, for myself, for my parents, for my brothers, for all that will be left but changed forever. Mostly though, I cry most for my darling brother who is being so gracious. For all the pain he's in, for the unfairness of it all, because I love him so and wish so so strongly that this wasn't happening to him.