Life Is So Precious

This is something I already know. One of life's lessons I learned when I was young. First it was my grandpa taken from me by ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. Then a year later it was two very good friends died in a drunk driving accident. A few month's later it was a girl I had known since elementary school and a friend of a friend beaten to death with a golf club over a cassette tape. After that it was my own brush with death. I stopped breathing and it wasn't my time yet so I came back. My mee maw in 1999 and grandma in 2006.

Having a chronic pain condition with no cure is another lesson in why life is that much more precious. It may be responsible for my own death at some point, indirectly. This condition could spread to my heart and cause me to have a fatal heart attack or the pain meds I'll have to take the rest of my life could cause something else to go wrong, like with my liver. What I have is RSD/CRPS, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. There are a couple of very good sites with accurate information. There is RSD Hope.
Also RSDS.
There are other sites with info as well that only takes a search to find.

So, besides the deaths I've already talked about, what, you may ask, brings this on. Because once again death touches my life. This time it was a woman I've known for about 5 years now and a close friend's 15 year old son. There was a plane crash in Tampa on Thursday afternoon. They and the pilot were killed. Even now I'm having a hard time processing it. She was fighting lung cancer, one of the worst kinds, mesothelioma. She wasn't going to give up until she took her last breath. She kept going through treatment, and it just kept coming back. Patty was a very special person. Despite what she was dealing with she still went to work and had a smile for everyone. She put aside her own pain to put others first. She and I were a lot alike that way. No matter how bad a day we had we'd put a smile on our face. I will keep on doing it because I don't know any other way to be.

Tyler, what a special young man he was. I struggle to use past tense for them. He cared so much for others. For 15 he was big. Over 6 foot tall with a heart so big that he surely should have brought peace to the whole world by himself. He was there because he couldn't let her be alone. There was a quote in the article in the paper today that his aunt told them he said. He said to Patty, "I'll be your angel. I'll fly with you. I'll stay with you." He was always over at her house whenever he could be there. He went with her whenever he could as well. His older brother was Patty's roommate. Seeing that quote from him just reinforces that for whatever screwed up reason the universe and fate has that they were meant to die together. He was her angel. She couldn't die without him. Just as they were about to take off, he called his mom and told her they were fixing to take off and that he'd see her in just a little bit. It just goes to show us that we never know when something we say will be the last words we'll ever utter.

Patty was losing the fight with cancer. She hadn't given up but we all knew her time with us was limited. I want to just scream life's not fair damn it!!!!! Why did he have to die too?!! He had his whole life yet!!!! Why Goddess?!? I don't do any of this because I know why, I've already said it....it was meant to be. I wish it were otherwise. She's no longer in pain, healthy and whole once again. Best of all she's not alone. They have each other now until it comes time for them to be reborn into their next lives. We will see each other again, of that I'm certain. In a group I'm in there was a death last month. The husband of one of the members. A horrible car accident and he was gone. There was something one of the other members posted and I like it a lot. I'm going to post it here.

This is part of a verse from Oturupon Odi:

This Earth is Beautiful.
Heaven is pleasing.
Orunmila asks the children of earth to return for renewal.
Children refuse to go.
The Elderly refuse to go too.
Why is this, we asked.
They replied that it's not easy to go to heaven and return,
Might as well not go.
But Orunmila says heaven is pleasing
Heaven is the home of beauty
Oduduwa couldn't live somewhere that wasn't pleasing
It is a good place where we will meet Orisa
Anyone that is called should answer the call.
No mother would call her child to a place of torment.
Yet the people of the world hesitate.
We are advised to make sacrifice that the veil may drop from our eyes.

The member that posted this also wrote "The wheel keeps on turning but nothing is lost. Things and beings just go round and round. We will all meet again so there's no Goodbyes just 'bye-for-nows'"

The words comfort me and I know they are true. There was also a poem that I loved posted in this same group for another member who died a few years ago. If I can find it I'll post it.

No matter who you are, what path you follow, your beliefs, know this.....Never let a day go by without telling those in your life that you love them. Tell them often you love them, that you appreciate them, how much they mean to you. Let there be no doubt, if you die suddenly, that you knew your heart and they did too. Even if you see your death coming, don't die without doing these things. People are always so busy, rushing hither and yon, always on the go. Those people miss so much. It really is the little things in life that bring the most pleasure. There is never any reason not to see things and take time to notice and appreciate them. We have, all around us, a great gift given to us by the Lord and Lady. Gaia provides us her bounty to sustain not only our body, but our heart and soul as well. How do we repay her? By polluting the air, ripping whole swaths of forest, throwing our garbage onto land and into the sea. The most precious gift of all and we're slowly destroying it. I fear that despite everything, all of our efforts, those of us who try to do the right thing and care for Mother Earth, that we'll be too late. Those who don't care will end up destroying us all with their selfishness and thoughtlessness.

Well, so ends my musings for today. My mind is a bit sluggish. Maybe as the days go by I'll gain some clarity of mind. Hold close the ones you love because there might not be a tomorrow.