Life is too short...

In the past week, two of my friends have lost their brothers. One seems to be natural causes and the other was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. One was single, the other left a family including his wife of 21 years and two boys, 11 and 15. In 21 days, it will be 2 years since my Steve died. Another friend of mine had a beautiful baby girl and, my sister Jennie, is due to have her 2nd baby -- Elliana Sharon -- any day now.

All of this has me thinking a lot about life and death and how they seem to go hand-in-hand. I've learned a lot over the last 23 months and 7 days... Life is too short. Maybe it's that I'm about to be 41 or maybe it's the fact that I've been widowed, but I seem to give a lot more thought to life now than I ever did before. And not just life as in breathing and moving and getting up every day -- but the quality of life. Like, maybe I should look into putting a swimming pool in next spring because if I don't do it now, I may never do it. And, in the grander scheme of things -- if I don't do it in this life -- it will never happen. The realization that this life will end -- someday -- is very sobering and it seems to have put things in perspective for me in a way that I've never had before.

It makes me wonder about my great friend, Paul. Diagnosed with colon cancer on his 32nd birthday. He put his body (and spirit) through chemo, radiaton and surgery and went 5 years of living his life (the way it was meant to lived). He was the happiest I'd ever seen him. He died early on a Saturday morning at the ripe old age of 37, 5 months and 2 days after he was diagnosed with his second round of cancer -- this time in his liver. We had some wonderful, philosophical and deep conversations -- throughout our 10 year friendship but especially towards the end, and I know he didn't want to die. He had so much left to do.

There's no particular point in this post, other than needing to write things out a bit... My friends will miss their brothers. I miss Paul and so many other people I've lost in the last few years. And my heart still aches for Steve, 23 months and 7 days later.