It won't be a problem for me

If, despite my best efforts to beat this insidious disease, it does actually beat me, I'm not worried at all for my own fate. I'll be gone, dead, having left behind all my worldly woes. It's the people in my life who I love and who love me that I'm worried about.

There's the husbands and wives and the unmarried life partners who are left behind to pick up the pieces of their lives, often without the benefit of much support to help them. We all make plans with our partners and it's a tragedy when time runs out before those plans get the chance to come to fruition. All we can do is our best to make sure affairs are in order to minimize the possibly of an intestate estate delaying the vital funds a person needs when they lose their partner.

No parent ever expects or wants their child to predecease them, no matter if that child is 4 or 40. It would be one of the most emotionally scarring events in their lives, that they would live with forever. Sure, time would heal the wounds to a degree, but still...

Then there are all the other family members. Sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, who may be too young to understand what's going on. Grandparents, especially the WWII generation have seen harder times and lost more of their families than most of the rest the population. That said, they are not so inured by loss that their memories of grandchildren arriving and all that goes with being a favourite Nanna or Pa leaves them unaffected. In all likelihood, the stoic attitude of that generation can hide deep grief.

Brothers and sisters who grew up together, never would have imagined that their sibling would one day get sick and die prematurely. It's hard all round - except for the one who's actually dead or dying.

Then of course are all the friends, close and merely acquainted. A good friend dying leaves a huge gap in a person's life.

These are the people I worry about more than me. As I say, if the worst comes to worse, I'll never even know, but for everyone else, it's the start of a whole new world of grief and pain that will last for as long as it lasts.

It's nice to be remembered, but nobody wants to be the cause of all that grief.