It just goes to show you...you can live a model life, be a good person, a good citizen, and still not get out of here alive.
True it goes for all of us, but it hits home more when it is close to you. My best friend's older brother was just diagnosed with prostate cancer. Gunner is about a year older than me. my friend Casey is 5 months younger than me. Needless to say, both Casey and I are feeling this one. I am close to his family, another sibling almost. They were more in the way of siblings to me than my own blood for a long time. Now one of them is facing serious illness, and a shortened life.
No one can prepare you for this sort of thing. It is always something happening to someone else. And the helplessness is the really hard part. I can do nothing for Gunner or his wife, or the family, except offer condolences and a shoulder to lean on. It isn't enough, at least not to make my own soul feel better. I couldn't even offer anymore than that to my own mother, and I was by her side through the cancer, and at her side moments after she died. I felt more like a little child in those moments than I ever had growing up. And I don't think I can offer anything more up to my other family, in the face of mortality.
I was supposed to be going to Austin tonight to celebrate with some music and musicians I have come to love. I think instead, I will be looking to hide inside their music to forget for awhile the shortness and fragility of our little lives here.
And if I have forgotten to say it recently, to any one out there, I apologise. We find out too late sometimes that we don't have enough time here and every moment does indeed count. Please know I love you. It is the one thing that time, distance, and even death can never change.