My friend, Eileen, lost her best friend and the love of her life this weekend to cancer. Pat was a big guy who loved his Harleys, laughed long and loud and was a total "guy" when it came to powering through whatever ailed him.Except he couldn't power through this.
I know people who are living relatively normal lives while being treated for cancer, thanks to progress made in the the fight against this awful disease. But Pat had adenocarcinoma, cancer of the sheaths that cover the nerves in the body. It is a cruel and ravenous bastard. In the space of five short weeks, adenocarcinoma brought down this big tough guy, but not before making him suffer horribly.
Thankfully, Pat's suffering is finally over. He's in the arms of the Lord, and things like tumors and morphine and hallucinations are long gone.
But how do you go about easing someone's pain when they've lost their husband?
You say prayers. Thanks to you amazing friends I have online, people who don't even know Pat have been praying for him. We've all been saying them, and I know they work.
Last night, I baked cupcakes and made pasta salad just to keep busy. DaGoils and I will pile into our cars and go visit Eileen this afternoon and I'll take my cupcakes and pasta salad. We'll hug and cry and talk and hug some more. Such small gestures that will be repeated often in the coming months because we know Eileen's suffering won't be over for a long time.
She is no cream puff, either. This is a lady who walked the first twenty miles of the Breast Cancer 3Day Walk with a migraine. If you've ever had a migraine, you can appreciate the resolve and strength of this woman.
Please remember Eileen in your prayers now. The next weeks and months mean adjusting to the worst loss of her life without the one person who could make it all better.
And I know Eileen. She'd sign up for a migraine every day for the rest of her life if she could just have Pat back beside her.
