We Are All Going to Die

 I have a friend who is sick.  Wait.  It's more of I have a friend who I strongly suspect is very sick and I am having insane anxiety over it. I don't know how else to put it.  He has known something is wrong for him but he is not insured so he doesn't want to incur medical expenses if he can.

He finally went to see a nurse practitioner, who set him up for some tests immediately making sure he could get in to do these tests the next day. We don't know the results of these tests yet, though talking with a nurse friend of mine she said that she wasn't going to bullshit me and it didn't sound good though she admitted she had a minor amount of information to go on.

My friend is a stubborn man, and I don't really think he cares if he dies. I will admit to being a selfish prick who has had this person in my life for decades and I want to continue to have him in my life. It's selfish, I know. I am only thinking of my own wants and needs over what he wants. The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach and I know he would be annoyed at knowing he was causing me worry but it's a dear friend.  It's one of those friends where you say "I love you" to them.

Back in the 90's we did a 1920's horror LARP together. I played the coward and he played the big game hunter bodyguard.  By the end of that campaign (which was very cosmic horror and rightfully ended with the end of the world), us and the group of PCs we assembled were the most influential in game faction there. We didn't set out to do this so much as he just drew people to us with our unwavering commitment to help people.

During combat my friend would run around trying to keep people alive and fighting off monsters, all the while whistling "Ode to Joy".  It's funny because you would be fighting for your life and you would hear the whistling increasing in volume as you knew the big game hunter was closing in on the monsters.  It was beautiful. Many years later my friend confessed that his character whistled that when his character was scared.  I never knew that.

I wrote a bad guy for that LARP simply called the Boogeyman. Sacrificed children and the souls of miscarriages would go to his realm. When my wife and I were trying to have a kid she finally got pregnant. We picked out a name, had our hopes and dreams about our future child, and then she had a miscarriage.  All I could think about was the stupid character I had created years before and where the souls of miscarriages go in that story. I truly believed I deserved what happened to me because I created the Boogeyman. I broke down in front of my friend about that fact and he simply said, "I would go to the Boogeyman's realm to retrieve her soul," and that gave me such great comfort.

It's moments like that I can't repay.  My friend has been there far more often for me than I have for him. He makes everything OK.I don't want to lose him, but in the end we all lose. We are all going to die, and there's not a damn thing I can do about that. When my firstborn son Gavin came into this world, I remember looking at him as a baby, and just crying because I knew no matter what I did, one day he is going to die alone.

This is of course the things in my own head I have to deal with. It's my problem, not yours, my gentle reader.

May you have a day of peace.