Catching up with friends can be saddening

Met friend X for Saturday lunch, having not seen any of my local friends face to face since May*, and in the process of catching up with her she brought me up to speed with everyone else. I'd known some of it was going to be bad, our regular Saturday lunch dates stopped suddenly when my friend Y's adult son was hospitalised, and I knew that was dragging on, but not how badly. And she opened that tale by saying "We didn't even see Y at John Z's funeral", to which my reaction was unfortunately, "What, John died? When?"

He was a friend who'd moved away, but formerly another of the Saturday lunch crowd. I was never entirely sure how he felt about me, but I liked him. He'd had serious health problems for years (I think since early 30s and he was pushing 70) and when they worsened had apparently chosen his moment to stop ongoing treatment and time his exit to his satisfaction. He was the archetypal engineer and controls were his speciality, and that is just so like him.

No better news WTR friend Y's son, I knew he'd been rushed into hospital with what they initially thought was an infection, and apparently the diagnosis wandered through meningitis and encephelitis before settling on terminal brain cancer with a 2 year prognosis. Needless to say Y has been distraught. Obviously I then felt a bit of a shit for not being more supportive, but X pointed out she has been offering to meet Y for coffee or whatever on pretty much a weekly basis and hasn't been taken up once (and she just lives around the corner from them). I'll make a similar offer now I know, but it sounds like it's unlikely to be taken up. The one piece of hopeful news is they've just switched his treatment from Kings to Guys**, and Guys thinks a chemo regime is worthwhile, where Kings didn't.

The one truly bright point among all this is that X's husband has been formally declared to be in remission after the bone marrow transplant he had at the start of the year.

I'm okay, sad for friends rather than sad for myself, but sometimes you need to write stuff down to work out how you feel.

* I actually live next town over from everyone else, so unless we actively plan to meet, we tend not to run into each other.

** Major London teaching/specialist hospitals