A Defiant Life: Trevor Grant (1951-2017)
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once," says Caesar to his wife Calpurnia in Julius Caesar.
Despite being an avid fan of Shakespeare and a valiant warrior for justice, Trevor Grant was shattered when he was diagnosed with cancer.
"My whole body shuddered. My eyelids closed over as tears began to well. My world faded to black," he later recalled.
But he was no 'coward'. He wasn't just ready to leave.
"So many times over the years I listened to journalist colleagues invoke the cliché of a "good life, not a long life" whenever we were reminded that a daily routine of a pack of cigarettes, six pots at the pub after work, and a souvlaki on the way home was a guaranteed path to an early demise.
I would often join in, rising from my bar stool to quote Sir Thomas More from Robert Bolt's "A Man For All Seasons" who, when about to face the executioner, says ever so calmly and defiantly, "Death comes to us all. Even for Kings he comes."
It's true. We all die. One day. But when the moment comes to confront the reality of your own death, as it did for me last year at 63, I discovered it's not so easy to be a smart-arse about it. Certainly, I was no Sir Thomas More," he admitted.
Time passed by, he reconciled. "Somehow you learn to adjust" he said.
"Above all else, I want to die happy," he wrote, at the end.
And as the autumn arrives, he gracefully left.
© JDS
Articles by Trevor Grant:
27.12.2012 - Sangakkara, batsman and propagandist extraordinaire
22.01.2013 - Big country, small heart: The story of Paartheepan Ranjini
06.02.2013 - Hushing up crimes: Politics of deceptions, fabrications and lies
01.03.2013 - Sri Lanka: 'I was hung upside down and beaten with metal rods'
30.05.2013 - An endless nightmare: Asylum seekers tell of their fears of deportation
11.06.2013 - Gillard orders deportations to danger - says Govt. official
12.06.2013 - A government lost in a sea of cynicism
18.11.2013 - In Defence of Dictatorship: Abbott goes it alone at CHOGM
18.05.2014 - No greater sorrow than the loss of one's native land
01.04.2015 - Among the walking dead of India's refugee camps