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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Tim Jonze

I wanted to scream at other parents: ‘You don’t know how lucky you are’ – how cancer in my 30s brought me face-to-face with death

Tim Jonze against grey background, fading away on right side, March 2023
Tim Jonze: ‘My outlook began to shift.’ Photograph: David Vintiner/The Guardian

You may or may not know the mobile game Wordscapes. Over calming new-age music, players are tasked with making as many words as possible out of a box of letters. The backdrop is a forest or a mountain range, and your mini-successes are rewarded with the sound of tinkling bell chimes and jingling coins. Swiping your fingers through the letters, and watching the words fly on to the grid, is an extremely soothing experience.

I used to wonder how I would spend my last remaining days if I were ever to find out I had only a short time left to live. Would I write that novel we’re told we all have inside us? Campaign to raise awareness of whatever merciless health condition I’d been struck down with? Or say, “To hell with work!” and spend whatever precious time I had left making memories with my family?

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