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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > A short and tortured life has ended.
A short and tortured life has ended.  [message #74315] Tue, 24 April 2018 00:31 Go to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1560



Some on here will know of my relationship with Maurice, through assorted previous posts. I hadn't managed to speak to him for a week, and normally our phone calls were several times a day. I learnt tonight from his sister that Maurice has died. He was just 27.

He had a difficult life, born HIV+ to heroin-addict parents, who introduced him to drug use from the age of seven. He was largely brought up in care, in secure childrens homes, and by the age of 18 had over 200 convictions for petty theft and drug use.  I got to know him, and he moved in with me in 2010, a few days before his 19th birthday, when it became clear he need considerable care and nursing as he had very advanced TB, after having been street-homeless for many months. When I retired and moved from London to Worcester, he moved with me. From his nineteenth birthday onwards, he had only one criminal conviction, and started to achieve a precarious and intermittent toe-hold on stability.

He started a relationship with a woman (which continued until his death), moved to Bedford to live with her, and had three children. The first two were taken into care (in my view, unnecessarily), and the third was born in January of this year and is currently in foster care.

Maurice was capable of great lows, and amazing and enthusiastic high points when his joy infected all around him. He was, in many ways, the son I never had. His life was never easy ... partly through his own actions, and partly due to circumstances over which he had no control. Nevertheless, he gave me much joy, and his passing has left me wracked with grief.

This picture - taken a few days before his 22nd birthday - sums him up.http://forum.iomfats.org/?t=getfile&id=4389&private=0



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: A short and tortured life has ended.  [message #74317 is a reply to message #74315] Tue, 24 April 2018 12:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13771



I saw your message at the start of the day, and have been thinking, not continuously, but throughout the morning. I have come to the conclusion that there are no words of mine that can express anything truly useful, but I wanted you to know that I have read what may be the only obituary Maurice will receive, written in your words.

I know how much he meant to you, and how much he became important in your life, both positively and negatively. You did a huge good thing. I'm sure he appreciated it perhaps especially when he did not seem to at all. You were important to him.

Three lives now exist because of him. If theirs are better than his was then he, too, did a good thing, notwithstanding that they have been removed from his and his lady's care.

[Updated on: Tue, 24 April 2018 12:27]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: A short and tortured life has ended.  [message #74318 is a reply to message #74317] Tue, 24 April 2018 14:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1560



Thanks, Timmy.

It turns out that he died mid-morning on Saturday, while his partner had popped out to the shop for twenty minutes. A date I'm unlikely to forget - it was my 63rd birthday.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: A short and tortured life has ended.  [message #74319 is a reply to message #74318] Tue, 24 April 2018 17:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13771



"NW wrote on Tue, 24 April 2018 15:07"
It turns out that he died mid-morning on Saturday, while his partner had popped out to the shop for twenty minutes. A date I'm unlikely to forget - it was my 63rd birthday.

--
He alwasy had a sense of occasion, I remember that from all you have told me in email and told us on the forum. When grief starts to ebb you can make parts of your future birthdays a celebration of the joy that he had inside him, and the great parts of his life, of which there were many individual triumphs.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: A short and tortured life has ended.  [message #74322 is a reply to message #74318] Wed, 25 April 2018 10:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jolyon Lewes

Toe is in the water
Location: SW England
Registered: September 2012
Messages: 62



It seems to me, NW, that extraordinary altruism on your part gave Maurice a life he'd never have had reason to expect, a good life for a few very precious years. I congratulate you and hope you'll remember Maurice with happiness.



Jolyon
Re: A short and tortured life has ended.  [message #74325 is a reply to message #74315] Thu, 26 April 2018 00:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
John Teller is currently offline  John Teller

Getting started
Location: Wherever life takes me.
Registered: March 2018
Messages: 9



NW,

I don't know you, or of you, but my sincere commiserations on Maurice's passing. I was deeply moved by what you had to say. There but for... etc. go I. Never a truer word was spoken. We are all children of fortune, good or bad. By the sounds of it, Maurice was on the downslope from the day he was born. Not his fault. It never is when one is a small child. But, from what you have told us, he did get to taste the sweetness of good fortune when he met you. You can't put right all the wrongs in the world but if you try to do your bit then that's all you can do. The fact that he had only one conviction after he met you speaks volumes about the affect you had on his life. In that regard, take comfort and remember the good moments.

John.

[Updated on: Thu, 26 April 2018 00:55]

Re: A short and tortured life has ended.  [message #74583 is a reply to message #74315] Sun, 22 July 2018 22:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
reinventingcory is currently offline  reinventingcory

Getting started
Location: Canada
Registered: July 2018
Messages: 1



my condolences! I hope i dont go that way in life Sad
Re: A short and tortured life has ended.  [message #74584 is a reply to message #74583] Sun, 22 July 2018 22:31 Go to previous message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13771



"reinventingcory wrote on Sun, 22 July 2018 23:03"
my condolences! I hope i dont go that way in life Sad

--
It is not a matter of hoping. It is a matter fo acting to ensure that you do not.

Do you feel a danger that you might head in that direction?



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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