Giann Condino

In memory of Tito Ian

I never met Tito Ian (Uncle Ian) as he died of leukaemia at 16 before I was born. Even if I never met him, his presence has always been a constant in my life as my family always likened me to him. I'd constantly get told I looked like him growing up and just shrugged it off as I didn't know the significance of that back then.

Realising this made me think a lot about my upbringing, why my family was overprotective of me and my siblings and wouldn't let us be as free as my mom and her siblings. Losing one of our own made a massive impact on our family and was the reason why we've been too scared for anything like that to happen again.

I'm shaving my head so that no other family experiences something like this. This is for my family and any other family out there going through or has gone through the same thing.

This one's for you, Tito Ian. I hope you're proud.