The Mortality of Life

About two and a half years ago, my grandmother died. When that happened, I realized that I had gotten to the point where having a grandparent die was not out of the ordinary. In other words, I was getting older, which meant everyone else was too, and the truth of the matter was (and is) that the older people get, the more likely it is that they could die. Being in my 20's then, unfortunately meant my grandparents are at least in their 60's if not their 70's...

And, then about a year ago, one of my closest friends from growing up lost his mother. She had battled illnesses since we were younger, but this once finally was too much for her to overcome. Once again, I had one of those moments where I realized that I was getting older. It could have been one of my parents or Eric's parents. In truth, over the last few years I have been very concerned about my own dad. I worried about whether he was taking care of himself. I wasn't the only one worrying about him. Thankfully, he has gotten better about taking care of himself, but I do still worry about him. I want him to be healthy, and I want him to be around for a long time.

Unfortunately, unless God comes back first, everyone will die.

And this week, I've really been struck with my own mortality. One of my good friends has been sick for about a week, and in the hospital since Monday night. He'd been having stomach pains, went in to the doctor, who then told him to go to the ER, and he's been there ever since. And despite the tests they've run, they have no idea what's wrong with him. Now, that I'm aware of, no one is really worried about this being a fatal thing. It's not a question of if he will get out of the hospital, but one of when he will. Obviously they won't let him leave until they can figure out what's wrong with him (and I don't know that he would want to leave the pain medications behind until then either). But, despite CAT scans, chest x-rays, colonoscopy, biopsy, antibiotics, etc., they cannot figure it out.

He is the same age Eric is. Which is only 3 years older than me. Our bodies will start to have problems. Stupid Adam and Eve. This was not supposed to happen to us, but now it does. And I'm not so young anymore :(

Life is so fragile. Doctors don't always have all the answers. And we can't fix old...