A Prayer for Rocky

As some of you know, my friend Rocky is dying from cancer.  He runs a small blog at http://rocosis1.blogspot.com/ where he has spent the last year and a half documenting his fight and his journey towards terminal velocity i.e. death.

It strikes me as odd:  I did not know Rocky before almost a year ago this month.  I have never known him with cancer.  I have never known the sound of his voice (He lost his voice a while ago) or seen him throw.  I have never known him as anything other than as he is now.

But what a knowing that has been.  He has been remarkably (remarkably!) open about his fight with cancer and his inevitable oncoming death.  In a way it is an online journal about dying:  not the dying we see in movies or the death that we so often come to know in our society - a sort of a quiet thing that happens to the side and we only know once it has happened.  Instead it has been open and available: the level of pain, the difficulty getting a trach tube in, the physical issues as Baxter (he has named the tumor) continues to grow.

He was admitted to Hospice last night. I am sure that he did not go willingly but necessarily.  He has beat the doctor's assessment by at least 6 months.  He has hoped to make it another 4 to February, to see the birth of his second grandchild.

I only have two requests for you today:

1)  Whatever is facing you, whatever you have to deal with, I can assure you that (for 99% of you) it is not nearly as bad as battling cancer and facing your own death.  Look at today with a sense of proprtionality.

2)  If you can (and if you are a praying person) spare a prayer for Rocky and his family.

Life is far more fleeting than we possibly imagine.  Embrace today.