A Dedication to a Special Friend

In November this year, I received a message letting me know that a close friend had tragically lost her 3 year battle with cancer. Georgina, George or “G” as she was affectionately known to her friends was a beautiful person that touched so many lives. 

I began working with G back in 2016 at Google and it didn’t take long for her to infect everyone with her smile, happy-go-lucky attitude and endless positive energy. In short, wherever G was, you knew people would be happy, treating one another with kindness and having a fun time. 

I later hired her onto my team, and G quickly leaned in to help with projects, partnered closely with her stakeholders and rallied everyone around social events that included running club, Monday nights at the pub and “Mind the Yap” which entailed taking photos of dogs on the London Underground.

Fast forward 5 years and G was promoted at work, landed a few new roles in different teams and married the love of her life who also just happened to be her buddy when she first joined my team. A close friendship that blossomed into something so special, and it really just filled my heart so much. 

But in between all of this in 2021, G was also diagnosed with cancer which rocked everyone that knew her.

For the next 3 years, although she went through incredibly tough times, she continued to push on with her smile, happy-go-lucky attitude and endless positive energy as she always did.

As fate would have it, my wife and I had already signed up to play in a Padel for Cancer charity event taking place on 23 November at the newest club in Singapore called Padel.co. Besides the entry fee, players in the tournament would raise money in order to support the Singapore Cancer Society. The organisers also did a wonderful job securing a number of sponsors and in total managed to raise almost $S52,000 for the charity made up from entry fees, donations and the sale of raffle tickets. Needless to say, the plan now is to run this event on an annual basis and raise even more money to support those affected by cancer.

The reason we signed up to play and support this event was that in the last 5 years, so many people close to us have been diagnosed with cancer. Now after hearing about G, we were even more motivated to show our support and dedicated our matches to her.

To mark the event, we had her favorite shirt printed to raise awareness and wore them proudly during the event. Overall, there was a fantastic turnout and although we felt quite sombre at times thinking about her, it helped to hear others stories of people they knew that are either living with the disease, are survivors or have lost someone dear to them.

We were lucky enough to make it to the quarter finals but ultimately, our opponents were too much for us and we were knocked out. But it wasn’t about winning, it was all about showing up, supporting a worthy cause and doing our bit in the fight against the disease. Throughout the day, we held G close to our hearts and I know she was smiling down at us throughout the day. It was an event that she would’ve loved being at and would’ve supported in her own special way.

We will forever love and miss you G xx