If there are good reasons why some people die and others live I would love to know what they are. Too often in my experience it isn’t just the good people, but the best people who seem to go young. With too much of life before them they’re gone. I have to admit, it makes me wonder.
Don Rhymer is such a man. Giving without needing thanks. Funny, but always in a self effacing way. I wish I’d known him longer. Knowing him made me a better person. He’d hate hearing that. It’s how he was wired. It was never about him.
Just a day ago or so my friend Don lost his battle with cancer. In the end he was with his family and his closest friends. Everyone says it is better that he is gone. In one sense it is. His suffering is ended. In another sense it isn’t. Death is so final.
Don would say we’ll see him again and I believe that. He was that good a man. If there is a heaven Don is there. No question about it. I think though that somehow he’s probably still thinking about us. Looking down and wanting to give, help, laugh, touch, listen, live. That's the way Don lived his life. If there is a way to help, Don will find it. That’s how he is.
Sadly, the power of life and death was not bestowed on me. Mine is simply to wonder. I know though that if I am to truly honor Don then what I need to do is stop focusing on this thing that I can’t change and start finding the things I can. Don found humor in the worst of circumstances. From the depths of his pain he also found and exhibited real love. There are lessons in that and, perhaps, it is these lessons that I am meant to ponder.
I nearly always say at the end of these things that what’s next is what’s important. Today I don’t think that’s the case. Just for now, what’s past is what’s important. I can leave what’s next for tomorrow.
Goodbye my friend and thank you for the time we shared. I’ll miss you along the way and will love and help those you loved as best I can. It’s what I know you would have done for me and, I guess, that’s going to have to be enough.
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