One of the original chemo 13 gang is gone.

Guys:

One of the original chemo 13 gang is gone.

I suppose I should have some profound thing to say today, but it’s too hard. My dear friend lost her fight and she is either gone or soon will be. No amount of prayer can stop this now; it can only prepare her new path for her. So if you have one left, say it for Melissa.

I suppose cancer survivors/recoverers (if that’s even a word) probably meet a lot of people in their trek and several will be gone sooner than later. This is the third or fourth person who shared this path with me that are now on a different trail, one that treads silently somewhere else, the footsteps only heard on lonely nights with the rustle of a leaf, or the flitting of a small birds wings. And we, earthbound, only get to wait for our turn to join them in some in some future, that to them is a blink of an eye, but to us a distance measured in minutes, hours, days, and years.

It’s all almost too much to bear.

I keep thinking of John Donne’s poem, even though my pain right now is more personal than his poem suggest. I placed it below for your convenience

'No Man is an Island' John Donne

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.