Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast. I'm Damien Thompson.

Today is January the 31st, 2022, which should be my sister Carmel's birthday, but isn't because she died on November the 23rd.

It wasn't unexpected. Carmel recorded two Holy Smoke podcast interviews with me about living with

ovarian cancer, with which she was diagnosed on the 1st of November 2018,

and diagnosed at stage four, which meant that it was overwhelmingly likely that she'd die

within the next five years. It was news that would send most people into a spiral of despair,

but not Carmel. And you can hear that in this extract from an April 2020 podcast,

recorded soon after Carmel's brief, glorious period of remission have come to an end.

Every time I see you and talk to you, I get the feeling, first of all, that you're managing

this disease without letting it take you over.

And secondly, more remarkably, there's normally something else you want to talk about

and that it's not at the forefront of your mind.

No, I mean, I think the return to wellness and keeping well and having my numbers responding and as well as my wonderful friends and loves

one around me have enabled me to adopt this sense of denial actually and I use that

word advisedly because what I mean is and other people have described the same sensation,

it's not the denial that is like the workings of grief,

where the first stage is that you do not accept that something has happened to you.

I do accept that it's happened to me,

and I follow advice of my doctors, and I do as I'm told, and I try to live well doctors and I do as I'm told and I try to live well.

But I do actively set aside the sense of cancer in my mind and get on with my life.

And I don't want to be part of this cancer club as such.

And I know many people find it helpful to join umpteen chat rooms and to discuss

...