Sibling Loss Interview by The ICR

In November 2025, for Sibling Loss Awareness Month, the ICR published an article on individuals who lost siblings to cancer. Rudy’s brother Arjun was interviewed for the piece. Below is an excerpt of the article covering Arjun's interview:

“Rudy was three years older than me – and a typical big brother, with all the good natured competition and rivalry that comes with that. But he had a huge influence on me, throughout my formative years, and on who I am today. As kids we were good friends and kept each other entertained, but the age gap meant he was also much more responsible. I was quite a fussy eater and I remember him sometimes taking on the ‘responsible elder brother’ role and trying to get me to finish meals! I went to the same university as him, but I started just after he graduated (which he was probably very thankful for). At that time, I insisted that I wasn’t copying him – that I was doing my own thing – but looking back now, he clearly inspired me a great deal.

I was 23 when he passed away on his 26th birthday and I still find it so difficult to talk about him and what happened. It is easier and, in my opinion, very important, to keep talking about the happier memories. One of the saddest things, is not having had the chance to see how our relationship would have developed into adulthood. A three-year age gap as a child or a teenager can feel quite big and you are essentially at different stages of life, but as you get older that gap seems to close and the relationship changes too. We were just on the edge of that – going for a drink together, weekend trips to visit each other – it makes me really sad to know we will never have that.

Support for people who have lost siblings is critical. It should be available to everyone, and then up to the person to lean into that or not. It’s a very personal thing. When Rudy passed away, my family wanted to figure out the best thing we could do, so others don’t experience what we went through. We want to grow the Foundation and make it sustainable over time, and we have a really strong Board in place to make that happen. Receiving updates from the ICR about the research we’ve funded has been a really important part of our mission. It makes it so much easier for us to communicate with our supporters and update our donor base. Because we fund PhD students, we get quarterly reports and it’s so helpful that the research is translated in lay-people terms for us. I think that program has been huge because it's a bit more tangible and it's great to see the progress that is being made. The GC conference that the Foundation is involved in every two years, is an incredible experience. We always come away saying, ‘There's something exciting happening here. There's real progress’. My focus is on finding a way to get that message out to our supporters, so they know that their pounds and dollars have gone towards that. My work at the Foundation is very different from my day job working in finance. But a parallel that I can draw is the problem solving that I see and taking some of those learnings and applying them to the Foundation. For example, being able to find a new donation system so people don’t have to create an account and go through numerous steps – just a few clicks on your phone and you’re done. Reducing friction increases the number of completed donations.

Rudy is never far from my thoughts. I’m married now and we had our first son 14 months ago – he’s just started walking, so there’s a lot of chasing around at the moment! I think my wife and Rudy would have gotten on so well - mostly making fun of me probably – they have a very similar sense of humour. And I think he would have been such a fun uncle. From the perspective of a sibling I have seen what this profound loss has done to our family, and my parents and I don’t want any other family to go through what we have."