Veronica (29/5/13)

This has to stay out in the world, this is how we remember people, how we keep them with us: we keep talking about them

I was 22 years old when I first met Veronica Colgan.

Don't know about you but I'm of the opinion that would make a fantastic opening sentence for something, a detective novel, a film noir perhaps. I've long thought that Veronica Colgan is a fantastic name; a dash of old school glamour, thirties Hollywood sort of feel to it but for a long time I didn't realise her surname was Colgan and it was only recently that I actually clicked that 'Vera' was short for Veronica.

Veronica Colgan is Jeanette's Auntie Vera. Auntie Ve. J's Mum's sister. I've always just called her Ve. And as I'm sitting here at home looking after the lads, J is with her family at the hospice where Vera has been since January.

We were told on Monday that it could be in the next 72 hours and given that when I spoke to J at 6pm she told me that I should head home and sort out the kids' tea and that she would be home in about an hour and it's now twenty past eight......it's looking likely that it may well be tonight that we lose Ve.

The first time I met Vera was at a housewarming party when J and I hadn't been going out that long. Vera, her husband Tommy (another Tom of the many in the family) and their daughter Joanne had just moved into a newly built house not far from where we live now. It was, as is typical of J's family, a damn fine party.

[ an aside - J has just come in, Vera's still hanging on but J doesn't think she'll last the night ]

It was Tommy's fault that I didn't know their surname - indirectly to be fair - everybody referred to him as Tommy Colly, J called him Uncle Tommy Colly. I naturally assumed their surname was Colly. Made perfect sense to me.

One of the main points that people will make about Vera in the next few days is that she knew how to swear. She really knew how to swear. In the most inoffensive way possible. She would quite happily pepper her conversation with 'the F word'. It always worked brilliantly as a punch line. Brilliantly, whenever Vera swore in front of me she would apologise. Only to me though, never to anybody else. She seems to have spent the last quarter of a century under the asumption that I'm a shrinking wallflower whose sensibilities shouldn't be offended. I'm a 50 year old man who talks like a docker but Vera still feels the need to apologise to me.

She's fought off cancer many times over the years. Beaten it every time. I know that people sometimes argue with the idea that people battle cancer, taking the viewpoint that it's a disease that you have and you have no control over it. Bollocks. Vera fought it every step of the way and I'm sure that she beat it through sheer bloody mindedness, through the determination that she wasn't going to let this bastard win.

Incredible woman. Incredible strength. We are going to mss her.

Not really drinking tonight, feel that there may be some running round to do later on, but I have this one small glass of red wine and this one's for Vera.