Chris Gonyea » Lesson http://chrisgonyea.com Random thoughts and ramblings Fri, 11 May 2012 19:13:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 How fragile life is http://chrisgonyea.com/archives/2010/06/19/how-fragile-life-is/ http://chrisgonyea.com/archives/2010/06/19/how-fragile-life-is/#comments Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:00:23 +0000 Chris http://chrisgonyea.com/?p=978 Continue reading →]]> On May 7th, which was just over a month ago, my wife and I were riding on a commuter rail heading to North Station in Boston. We were attending Game 3 of the Celtics/Cavs series and this was my surprise birthday present. We were very pumped, looking forward to the Celtics game. In truth, it was a bad night. The Celtics laid a complete egg that game, with a humiliating loss. Yet that wasn’t the worst thing that happened. Before the game started, we found out my wife’s aunt had a very deadly form of lung cancer.

We would hear reports occassionally on how she was doing. Just a week ago, we heard she was starting chemotherapy and she seemed very upbeat about the whole thing. We hoped that it was a positive sign and maybe she could beat this thing.

Today, just 44 days after that horrible news, we were traveling back from Portsmouth when my wife got a phone call. She started crying almost immediately. I knew it was bad. Her aunt passed away.

In just 44 days her aunt went from living a relatively normal life (she had health problems to begin with) to succumbing to cancer. Heartbreaking to say the least. Yet she lived a full life and had a wonderful family. As her son said today in a Facebook post, “we lost a saint today.”

Next time you talk with someone you care about, realize that in as little as 44 days, they could be gone.

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