This was written a few years ago after one of my colleagues at work who was only forty two died from cancer. I have recently lost another friend to depression. How easily we slip away.
I woke up one morning and my whole world had changed. It wasn’t as though I had planned it that way or even thought that it might turn out that way, it just showed up like an unexpected baby. "Oh my god! I missed pregnancy and I have a three year old who needs to be fed and clothed and who isn’t potty trained!"
So you run outside and yell at the sky as though it might rain. All that happens of course is that the sun pops out from behind a cloud and blinds you.
My friend died this year, she was 42. There was no warning and I didn’t know how to say good-bye. All I could do was look directly into the sun and yell at the sky and pray for rain so that it would put out the fire. She died of cancer, it stole her life like an evil little uninvited monster which had come to dinner but had not been asked to leave.
I had the feeling that life was a precious but vulnerable entity, which could be taken away without a moments notice by something that had no understanding of the turmoil it would leave behind. So I went to the doctors to have the mole on my side checked out. It’s been there for ten years and being a man I have never really thought that I could get sick, much less die. Suddenly, after Fiona had passed, I was aware of the fact that one day I would in fact die. Panic. I have a 13 month and three day old daughter who comes to me with an awkward gate in her walk and puts her head on my shoulder (I have to kneel down) and hugs me. I know that she is 13 months and three days old because every day is special to me now. Every hug, every moment in my life is a moment I could waste. Every moment is one that if not used will dissolve into the forever of never used time and will not be regained no matter how hard I try.
The mole is a wart and is not cancer. But, how that cancer can spread, in the form of doubt and wasted time and lost hugs. The nurse said I was healthy and living the life of a man fifteen years my junior. I am 52 and Paige is 13 Months and three days. How wonderful is life that we should have this gift, this beautiful child who hugs me and calls everything daddy.
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| Erin and Paige on Paige's first day at School |
