Life is Short

July was a bittersweet month for me and I wasn’t able to write any of our childhood stories because of the events that took place.

One of my fellow employee’s 3-year-old daughter, Megan, was diagnosed with leukemia the first week of July. This was heartbreaking news for everyone in our company – we are a very close, family kind of company where we all know each other’s families and really care about each other. Megan is a beautiful little girl, full of spunk and very smart. She’s still young enough to believe that the world revolves around her and no one is going to convince her otherwise. Megan’s parents, Joe and Karen, were already in financial trouble when this diagnosis was made. So we (I) decided that the company needed to find a way to raise some money for them and we did. We had a bake sale out of our office that ran two days, got TV coverage and raised almost $6000.00. We set up a trust account for that money and any future donations we receive. All in all, it was a very rewarding and uplifting experience.

The bake sale took place on July 25th and 26th. On the night of the 26th, our neighbor and close friend, Travis, had a massive stroke and was gone within 5 minutes. Travis was Garry’s best friend and loosing him has been devastating for everyone that knew him. There was standing room only at Travis’ funeral – more than 300 people. Travis built, collected and showed hot rods. His hot rod buddies showed up at the funeral in their hot rods! They all parked together in front of the chapel and revved the engines – it was wonderful. I cried. The funeral was truly a celebration of his life with laughter and tears. This is a strange thing to say, but it was the best funeral I’ve ever been to. Now we all have to get used to life without our friend and support his wife as best we can.

The fact that I celebrated 6 years cancer free on July 31 got lost in the roller coaster of emotions in July. However, when I realized it, I was even more grateful to be here.

Our family has been so fortunate not to have our children suffer from potentially fatal illnesses and we’ve had a chance to tell our loved ones goodbye before we lost them. I think what I really need to say is that life is too short to let old disagreements keep some of us apart. I want our family to have a reunion – and Bob, you have to be there too! We never know what tomorrow holds.

Love,
Kathy aka Anne