NEWSFLASH: Cancer Doing It's Best To Ruin Things For Everyone

So it's #worldcancerday and as much as I wish that hashtag didn't sound like it's a celebration of cancer rather than the pursuit of it's destruction, I still think it's always a good idea to raise some awareness.

"Who isn't aware of cancer you hashtagging buffoon?!" I hear you type. Indeed we are all aware of it's existence and that much is being done to combat it as well as it's horrendous effects on the people and families it changes on a daily basis.

But how about being aware of what else it affects?

When most people do this kind of social network rant they speak of how they have been directly affected by the family and friends who have had it and why that made them donate/sponsor/run a marathon etc.

I understand if you haven't been directly affected that it's easy to switch off and say "Hasn't affected me mate." and to an extent I can agree that unless something affects your life it's often difficult to find a reason to get behind it's charity.

But I can assure you, you are affected.

This year in the first month alone we've lost many fondly thought of celebrities and entertainers, some of whom we lost to cancer, probably most notable of those would be David Bowie and Alan Rickman.

My mum fought cancer, and a very close friend has been fighting it for years and still is. But you don't know them so there's no reason for you to care.

But you've heard Bowie, and your friends and family have and so has most of the world. And his work may have had a big or small influence on you, like memories from your childhood or your favourite albums or his inclusion on a soundtrack or it reminds you of a relationship or how you and your friends all try to do impressions of him, but in some way he has touched your life and the lives of others.
The art he has shared with the world has shaped it in all sorts of ways.

And he can't do that any more.
Cos of cancer being a shit.

Alan Rickman was a much beloved actor and anyone who liked him usually had one or two of his performances noted as their favourites: Die Hard; Truly, Madly, Deeply; Galaxy Quest; the Harry Potter films.
Again, he has brought characters and words to life in a way singular to his performance, style and delivery.

He can't do that any more.
Again, cancer is a dick.

I believe that when someone we admire from afar dies, like musicians and actors and artists and film-makers and so on, even thought we didn't know them personally we do have a right to mourn them. 
Though we haven't truly lost them as we have been left with the history of their legacies, we are mourning all the future memories they'll never get a chance to give us.
And this can be said of everyone who passes away.

I believe that people are made up of everything they experience in life and that shapes them into who they are. Bowie and Rickman are in some small way a part of who you are whether you like that or not. If you admired either of them, or anyone else who ever died of cancer like Dennis Hopper, Andy Kaufman, Bob Marley, Carl Sagan, Édith Piaf and many more besides-
In that way, cancer has directly affected you.

Cancer affects us all.

It doesn't have to take someone close to you.

But it always takes someone that means something.