His wish
When a person is confronted with a terminal illness, death seems to become a close friend. Paul loved life and he enjoyed it fully. Even though his life was filled with many obstacles he kept his faith and strength.
He had an enourmous faith and inner strength. This made him after every operation determined to get better with our love as a strong motivation. Our last holiday in September 2000 in Ireland was for both of us a very special one.
We had planned at the start of the year to get married (on the 22nd of November 2000) and this had become our new goal to fight for. Paul knew that after this holiday he had to face an important appointment with his specialist and this frightened us both.
We talked about our fear and filled our holiday with as much joy and love as possible. We tried to keep each other positive and it made us create every second of the day into an important moment.
This holiday was a golf tour usually only attended by 'the boys'. Paul had discussed his situation with his friends and they made the exceptional decision to allow a woman (me) to attend. Paul played his favourite sport with more passion than ever and he won the competition. While playing, he told his friends that even though he might not be able to come the following year, his spirit would be in this place and he then expressed his wish for his ashes to be scattered and pointed out the spot.
The boys said that if he would not be amongst us anymore they would name the trophy connected to this tour, the Paul Rooke Memorial Trophy. Paul was very honoured and proudly told me about this conversation.