Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

I have already received my best, by far, Christmas present for ‘24. Nothing will upstage it. Nothing will beat it.

It didn’t cost anything, wasn’t wrapped, there was no card, none of the frippery. And it was drip-fed caringly and generously over several months. The gift was time, one man’s time, very precious time because he didn’t have too much of it left.

And he gifted a good chunk of it to me. What a privilege. What an honour. They say giving someone your time is the greatest gift because it’s a bit of life you never get back.

Andy and I met in a gym – probably the two oldest, greyest members, Statler and Waldorf pretending to be Adonises, trying to upstage each other. The banter was merciless, but he managed to turn the tedium of a workout into a joke and joy. A cheeky, funny, smart, wisp of a man – I grew to love him in that wonderful, respectful, fun, blokey kind of way.

Then one day Andy casually dropped to me that he’d had “a bit of a bad diagnosis”. Said it almost glibly so I didn’t read too much into it. He didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask. It spared me asking difficult questions, to which I might not like the answers.

Gifted unconditionally 

Much later, Andy explained his tumour was inoperable, and that he had already well exceeded his “use-by date”. That’s how he, we, coped with his predicament. It worked for two blokes. Of course he would have discussed his prognosis, his mortality, the dark stuff, with the professionals and family. And that cleared him and me to get on with the living bit.

That’s when Andy started my Christmas gift. Without fanfare, fuss or flap, he started giving his time without knowing how much he had left to give. His precious time, gifted unconditionally, and I was the benefactor.

We would sit in various cheap and cheerful eateries chugging flat whites and a picking over a collective 140 years of yarns, lies, thoughts, experiences. And that would be another hour-and-a-half direct debited from his dwindling account of God-given time, which would arrive in my account. Every transaction was a blessing.

Andy never complained. “Off his food” or a “bit tired” was the worst it got. Although he did matter-of-factly mention one day he would “eventually hit the wall and the end would come fast”. But right now, he felt fine, looked fine, sounded fine. It was probably selfish but that’s what I wanted and needed to hear. Put all the gloomy stuff aside.

Another withdrawal 

Then he would draw another three hours from the balance of his “time left account” and we would climb on our mountain bikes. Over the hill from Bureta, through the marshlands, through Bethlehem and up the Minden. It was yet another living bequest to me.

Andy was a cowboy on his bike, always ready to gamble some of the time he had left. On his way back down the Minden he overtook a tractor and then a car while I held back gripping my brake levers. He scared the hell out of me. The gods delivered him safely to the bottom where he explained “there’s no point climbing hills if you don’t enjoy the ride down”.

A week later we would do it again. Another two or three hours of Andy’s time would be invested with me and we would ride ourselves into the ground. Or at least into an early bed that night after a beer and a laugh.

Custard squares 

Andy would talk up “the angels” at Tauranga Hospital’s oncology department and the “amazing connection” among patients. His “family away from family” he called them. The chat would segue from cancer to custard squares because a bakery at the Historic Village across the road produced a classic one. A custard square could turn the battering from another round of chemo and radiation into a social occasion.

I enjoyed the fact a man who was so free with his time couldn’t keep time. He was invariably late. If we were to rendezvous at 2pm, he would call at 20 past to explain he was going to be late when he was already late.

I hadn’t seen Andy for a couple of weeks, which wasn’t unusual when he was undergoing treatment. Then one evening the phone rang. It wasn’t Andy. It was his son. I knew. I just knew. He didn’t have to tell me. I’d lost my new friend of a few months, I’d lost my benefactor, the giving was done, my allocation of Andy’s time was over.