At 12.45pm on Sunday, a group of walkers hope to arrive in Burry Port right on time. It is the hour Gareth Thomas always arranged to meet everyone on a Sunday.
Gareth, 80, died at his sister’s home in Gorseinon on 12 May, four months after he was diagnosed with two brain tumours.
Now his sister, Mair Renowden, and friend Chris Hughes have organised a 10-mile walk in his memory. It will raise money for Marie Curie, the charity that cared for him at home.
The walkers set off from Loughor Boating Club at 8am on Sunday 15 November. It comes three days after what would have been his birthday, according to the walk’s fundraising page.
‘Sixteen of us together for Christmas’
Mair said her brother was “very healthy” until last Christmas, when her son was home from Australia with his family. “We were 16 of us together for Christmas, which was amazing,” she said.
Before the new year he was dropping things, she said, and having trouble with his left leg and left hand.
Hospital doctors found two glioblastoma tumours. Mair said: “It was so aggressive that they said there is no treatment and obviously no cure.”
A “very compassionate” oncologist gave him four months, and he decided to enjoy the time he had left. He moved in with Mair, a hospital bed went into the dining room, and the Marie Curie calls began almost at once.
‘His angels in blue’
Mair said: “We could not have coped without Marie Curie, the support, the love and the compassion.”
Her brother had his own name for the staff who came: “his angels in blue”.
After two weeks of respite care in Cimla in the spring, Gareth came home. He died a few days later.
Fields of Gold, and Llanelli, not Swansea
Those months gave them time to talk through what he wanted. Mair said: “Gareth had written out everything that I needed to know.”
That included his own order of service, left in an envelope in a folder upstairs. He told her to open it “when I kick the bucket”, she said, “so there’s nothing for you to worry about”.
He chose Eva Cassidy’s Fields of Gold. He also asked to go to Llanelli crematorium and not Swansea, “because I’m a Turk”.
Marie Curie is urging other families to have the same conversations. It has brought out a free deck of 52 question cards, called Exit Interview Cards, to help start them.
The charity says almost one in three people in Wales miss out on the care and support they need at the end of life.
A carol concert in Pontarddulais too
A second fundraiser follows on Sunday 6 December. Côr Glandulais, the choir Mair sings in, joins Pontarddulais Male Voice Choir, Pontarddulais Town Band and school choirs for a community carol concert.
It is at Capel Hope-Siloh in Pontarddulais, with doors opening at 5.15pm, and the money raised will also go to Marie Curie.
Mair said: “I really want to raise as much as possible, because Marie Curie made a huge difference to us during their calls.”
Donations to the walk can be made through the group’s JustGiving page. Marie Curie’s free support line is 0800 090 2309.
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