Death Seems To Be All Around Lately...

      It's been a strange ten days or so. Perhaps it's because a good part of it was to be expected, but when other new things come along, it seems to magnify things even more, and you wonder when things will get better....


    I kind of refer to the week between March 31 and April 5 as Death Week.  The 31st was the 1st anniversary of the passing of my good buddy, Loisann, and the 5th was the 20th anniversary of my Mom's dying.  The combination of old and new made this year a bit more to deal with.  The group of friends that Lois had made her loss easier, but there is really no one who understands on it... Then, the real news got bad..... Fast.


    Joe's best friend and college roommate, Rick, got appendicitis, and it has become a worst case scenario.  Rick is a hulk of a guy, who lives life a bit to excess.  Personalitywise, he's a laid back, easygoing guy, but he loves to eat and drink. When the internal pain got so bad, they took him to hospital, where they had reservations about opening him up. But, his appendix burst. Then, it got really bad...


   After cleaning up all the toxins internally, they had him under, where he bit down on his breathing tube, where he went into cardiac arrest, and was offically dead for 16 minutes. Were it not for the doctor not giving up on him, he'd be dead.  They put him on ice for 2 days to keep brain swelling down a week ago, but since then, it hasn't gotten much better.  He now has pneumonia. His kidneys have shut down.  He's on a breathing tube. Essentially, his body has shut down...


    Rick's a tough guy, but once these things happen, how tough you might be go right out the window.  Joe is a bit of a wreck, and Carol's pretty down too... All I can do is to support my friends, and be there for them when they want to talk, babysit Stevie if they need it, and maybe distract them when they are down.  As for you guys, I have one request: pray for Rick. He's only in his 40's, and no one knows, even if he does recover, what his life will be like.  We could use a miracle.


    The one good thing for me? Where last week is filled with what seems to be everybody's passing, next week is when it seems when all my friends and families have birthdays. Guess it all evens out, doesn't it?


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