The only thing louder than the drunken college kids hooting and hollering, was the nurse yelling at them to get out of her hospital! We (yes, I was one of the drunks) were supposed to be supporting one of our buddies who had a new knot the size of a cantaloupe on his noggin due to St. Patrick’s day shenanigans, but instead we were distracted by unattended wheelchairs and decided that the halls of an emergency room would be the perfect place for drunken wheelchair races.
Even though that was about 32 years ago, last week we had light-hearted texts about having more wheelchair races in support of our friend. Although this time, even if any of had been drinking, we were suddenly very sober. The word came across that our good friend was having uncontrollable seizures. They couldn’t get them to stop so they put him in a coma to try to figure out what was going on. Was he having some sort of heart failure? A stroke? Was he going to make it??? In our defense, only after he came back to consciousness and stopped having seizures (due to a sodium imbalance), did we resume any dumb jokes (and technically not until after he sent us a pic flipping us off to let us know he was still alive).
Thank God that this is not a eulogy, so I don’t need to tell you what a great guy this friend is, but I wanted to share a small slice of his life. He and his wife loved to travel. Not like, “I’m going to sit on a beach” travel, but “we are going to summit some of the world’s largest peaks” travel. This all changed a couple of years ago when he was diagnosed with a rare disease that is basically shutting his body now. Now instead of climbing a mountain, he needs help getting out of a chair. There were no signs, no warnings, no family history that he should be on the lookout, nothing.
It was quite a week. Besides my friend in a coma, two different family members discovered they had cancer. Again, no signs… no warnings, nothing to tell them that maybe something wasn’t quite right. Now just to be clear, all of them should be fine. You should be fine and I should be fine. But unfortunately, you don’t know and I don’t know. I still don’t believe they have found the person who on his deathbed has said, “I really wish I spent more time in the office!” Get out, take the trip, create some fun memories.
I wish I could leave it at that, because with all my heart I do believe we should get busy living and not just go about life with each day bringing us closer to death. But the truth is, we all are going to die. As uncomfortable as it may be or even depressing as it may seem (thanks for the “funny” Tom), death awaits us all. That fact alone should make you want us very seriously ponder the words from Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Those are words from either a madman or the Son of God… only you can decide which but you at least owe it to yourself to research him, and make a decision and probably sooner rather than later because tomorrow is not promised to anyone.
#WorstFunnyEver
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