Moments:

Comedy is fertile ground for sentimentality, but it’s unusual for a show to have a scene quite so poignant as the one at the end of The Office.

“The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with.”

That’s Tim Canterbury, played by Martin Freeman. He’s reflecting on the randomness of life, and his will-they-won’t-they relationship with former receptionist Dawn Tinsley.

It’s the office Christmas party – tinsel on the light fittings, warm red wine in plastic cups – and Dawn is saying her goodbyes as she prepares to return to her disappointing life in Florida with boorish fiancé Lee.

“You know, you don’t know them, it wasn’t your choice,” says Tim, “And yet you spend more time with them than you do your friends or your family.”

I’ve found myself thinking about that scene in particular more and more recently.

The night my life changed, the night I nearly died, was a Sunday.

If what happened had happened any other time of the week, I might not have gone straight to A&E, the only place open.

I might not have had Chesterfield Royal’s skilled surgeons operating on me a few short hours later.

And if any of those random variables had played out another way…

…if I’d made different choices, or had different choices thrust upon me…

…my own story might not have turned out as well as it did.

I’d been having Crohn’s disease flare-ups for months without addressing the problem, and that Sunday was the crescendo. My bowel perforated – a snap like opening a Coke can, a pain like the stab of a blade – causing peritonitis that left untreated would probably have killed me.

Today, I live with a stoma. Not always easy, but better than the alternative.

I try to cherish the good moments while they’re happening, and remember the bad ones won’t last forever. When there’s no way of knowing what’s round the corner, I think that’s the most any of us can do.

And that Office romance?

In the next scene, we see Dawn in the back of the taxi taking her to the airport, wide tears rolling all the way down to her jawline. She’s got a decision to make.

Tim is trying to stay optimistic. He knows whatever’s coming next is out of his control: “If you turn the camera off, it’s not an ending, is it? Come back here in ten years. See how I’m doing then.”

Spoiler alert: Dawn doesn’t go to Florida. Over to Tim:

“Life isn’t about endings, is it? It’s a series of moments.”

Until next time,
Adam Kay