Life

I just found out my bud here at work's mom has cancer. She'll know if it is operable tonight. If it is, she'll go into surgery tomorrow to remove the cancerous part of her lung. If it isn't...well they won't be doing surgery.

I have no idea why it's hitting me so hard, but I keep thinking of what I'd do in that situation. I'd think it'd be so quiet....almost like a bad dream. I'd have to think it'd be something you couldn't quite convince yourself was real just yet. You're convinced you're going to get good news and be okay, but....what if you don't? Then you tell yourself worrying won't change things, so you try and think about something else and deal with the news when you get it. But every moment you watch the clock tick by.

I don't think it's too much of a secret that I'm going through an early mid life crisis. My faith, my certainty of what comes after life, any sense of peace I had has been tested and somewhat shattered lately. The pills help me think of other things, but it's always there.

My buddy has just been through the loss of a child as well. I have no idea how he deals. I think it'd feel like my heart was ripped out. I'd feel like the unfairness and randomness of life and death was always present, that anybody could go at any time. Most times we tell ourselves nice things to deal with that fact, but I wonder what would happen if they weren't true? The horror of this just hurts so badly that I have no idea how to live with it as it is, and if I were in his shoes I think it'd be too much to bear. Again, I admire his strength, because I am certain I wouldn't be able to hold up under similar pressure.

One of the great philosophers of our time, Calvin, was discussing life and the afterlife with his stuffed tiger Hobbes in the middle of the night after losing a baby bird he found the day before, and the though that drove them both under the bed was the big question...why? Why him? Why did the bird have to die? What did he do to deserve it? The answer just isn't there. His words were "It's either mean or it's arbitrary, and either way I've got the Heebie Jeebies."

Maybe we weren't meant to know such things. Maybe how we deal with the spectre of death determines what kind of person we are. I wish I knew. In the Christian faith, God doesn't want to give us the cheat sheet. It's easy to be faithful if you know God exists, not so easy if you don't. I hate that.

Please God, if you are listening, please help her. Please make her be okay and pull through this. Life is too beautiful to lose, and a mother is too wonderful to lose like that. I want to believe there is something else and someone watching over us. I've never met her and I want her to be alright so badly I'm choking up right now.

And if my friend reads this, I hope he understands why I have to write about this here. I'm praying for you man. I'm not sure if my faith is strong enough to do much, but I'm praying. I don't want to see you hurt like that again.

This is disjointed rambling...I know. I don't have any other way to get it out though. This stuff is....difficult....to talk about for me. Every time I try to even think about life and death I send myself back into depression again, so I try to forget.

I'm going to forget for now. I'm going to go home soon and hug my wife and eat with her. I'm going to have fun tonight and not think about it if I can help it. But it'll still be there. I just have to hope, and to try and find my faith in something.

Thanks for listening, and I'm sorry all this sounds so disjointed. I'm not going to proof it, or probably ever read it again, but it had to get it out.