Bloke devastated after receiving heartbreaking message about brain tumour from his barber

Warning: This article contains discussion of cancer which some readers may find distressing.

A bloke shared some sad news he received after trying to organise a haircut with his barber of several years.

It's a tragic part of life that sometimes something you appreciated for years can suddenly be gone and you'll never get it back.

Anyone who's had a good barber will know they're worth their weight in gold and if you've been seeing the same person for years it's hard not to think you'd essentially become their friend over time.

That's what happened with one man who tried to book a haircut with his barber John, who had been cutting his hair for 10 years, only to be told some very sad news.

What started as a simple message to ask for a haircut resulted in him being told the barber shop had closed.

Tara Moore/Getty

The message read: "I have closed the shop completely as I have been diagnosed with a brain tumour which is terminal they have advised me to have the tumour removed but until they send it off for biopsy I won't know how long I have left to live thanks for being a great customer over the past few years John."

The man then called his barber after that message and John told him he'd ring back once he got the results.

But months later, he's heard nothing and when he tried to reach out again his message came up with the 'not delivered' note.

His calls went to voicemail and now it's telling him that the number is not available, leading him to hope that his former barber has just changed phones.

"It’s hit me like a ton of bricks, and I’ll never know if he’s ok or if he’s gone," he wrote on Reddit in a post where he said he wanted to 'seek comfort'.

Plenty commiserated with him, letting the poster know his barber would have 'appreciated that you cared'.

While others said they felt a 'strangely visceral sadness' at the 'not delivered' note on the man's final text message to his barber, an attempt to reach out that will forever be unknown to the intended recipient.

A second said it was a 'bleak' exchange, while a third described the situation as 'heartbreaking', and it really does seem to be.

The bloke described his barber as 'the loveliest, chattiest, bubbliest, friendliest guy' you could ever meet and said they never stopped laughing while he was in the barber's chair.

Something that he found really hurtful was that when he last spoke with John, he learned that message had been sent out to a load of his other customers of many years and they hadn't called or responded.

"I don’t care about people not being able to deal with that kind of thing, how hard is it to send a conciliatory sympathetic text?" he added.

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact Macmillan’s Cancer Support Line on 0808 808 00 00, 8am–8pm seven days a week.

Topics: Health, Cancer, Reddit

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker