Condolences, Danny.
I lost a dear friend of more than ten years only about six weeks ago. In a way, I lost him before I knew him and he was dying when I met him. -- Sixteen years ago he was a candidate for a seat in the legislative yuan here in Taiwan, and was very popular. Actually , from what I hear, he was set to win the election. And then someone shot in the neck during a speech/rally. He was paralyzed from the neck down and his immune system was thrown out of whack, and had to breathe with the help of a respirator for the rest of his life.
My wife and I met him about two years after the "incident" when his sister, whose daughter was our student at the time (my wife and I run a small language school here in Taiwan) showed up at our doorstep and said that her big brother wanted to see us and she was taking us to see him. His youngest son was also our student at the time.
It turned out that he was a obstetrician/gynecologist and still was still running his hospital with the help of several other doctors. His son a junior high student but his English was very strong and he was in a class with high school boys who were very close to us and who knew we were trying to have a baby. Each month about the same time they would quietly ask my wife, "Well... any good news?" Anyhow his son had watched and heard and told his father about these goings-on for about six months. His father, our deceased friend, thought he could help. And to make a long story short, all three of our children were delivered at his hospital. And we became close friends.
In all those years, I never once heard him complain about his lot in life or feel sorry for himself. We didn't see him much -- often it was inconvenient or even dangerous as he was very succeptible to lung infections -- but the love was deep. One Monday, out of the blue, his wife called and told us that he had passed away the previous friday. We hadn't gone to see him for about nine months and during that time he had been hospitalized for septic shock several times. At the wake, his father told us that he had been getting weaker and weaker, he had had pneumonia, hemoraging of the lungs, fungal infection of the pancreas, spleen and several other organs, and was unable to speak. But his father knew that he wanted to go on fighting. But his father couldnt take it any more and told his to be brave, and removed the respirator. His father said that in all these sixteen years that was the only he saw tears come out of Curtis' eyes. He died six hours later.
It's a terrible story. Terrible to lose someone you love. When my cry about breaking a toy, or as a result of a quarrel, or because of one of the hundreds of small disappointments in life, I always ask them, "Did someone die?" And when they say no, I tell them, "There are only 'big deals' in life: being born, getting married, having kids, and dying. Save your tears for one of those. And if it is one of those times, don't be shy or ashamed."
Don't be shy or ashamed.
James
