Similarly, After Life has always gone for the emotional jugular. The pathos finally hits hard in the last episode, when Gervais/Tony finds some much needed humility. Meeting the kids at the hospice, he even climbs down from his atheist stance – the payoff to a subplot in After Life that also plays to Gervais’s 20-year shtick.

The scenes with the kids are nicely done. Joking around, Tony taps into one of the big challenges of looking after children with cancer: the need to be always “on” – always upbeat, always optimistic, never letting them see how terrifying it really is.

(Slightly less relatable for me was the sick girl whose sister has shaved her head in solidarity. Our youngest, a hyperactive five-year-old, never offered to shave his head, but instead went round school telling kids that his big brother is now bald – much to big brother’s irritation.)

Gervais – particularly when writing with Stephen Merchant – has often been a master of beautifully-composed endings. The emotional sucker-punch of The Office; the cold cynicism of Extras being overrun with the warmth of friendship in its final minutes; and the feel-good finale of Cemetery Junction. Even the widely slated Life’s Too Short signed off with a likable special.

Gervais’s character finds a new purpose when he promises to visit the little boy (played by Isaac Vincent-Norgate) every day until he’s better. Most poignant is a scene when Tony describes the effect of meeting the boy. “So sweet and innocent,” says Tony. “All my own troubles I put on hold… He became my troubles. It sort of stopped the cycle – the descent into darkness – because I had a cause. It’s like, if the kid lives then so do I.” 

I wouldn’t presume to speak for other families going through it. Every experience is different. There are families enduring much worse, whose lives with cancer are infinitely harder. I can only say to them what so many people have said to us in the past six months: I can’t imagine what you’re going through.

But for me, Ricky Gervais gets it right in After Life – the feeling of insignificance and awe. If anything is likely to make you reassess life and grab hold of second chances, it’s facing childhood cancer. The kids’ bravery saves more than themselves – it’s saved us too. Ricky Gervais isn’t the only one to be humbled by a little boy with cancer.