Sadness

A few years ago I went to Australia and before I left I started making "friends" on MySpace (haha remember MySpace?). One of the people I became friends with was a guy named Steve. We kept in contact and when I arrived we met face to face after about 2 weeks of being in Australia. We hit it off really well and became great friends.

Through him we met Dan, who let us stay at his house for a week. Both guys showed us enormous amounts of hospitality.

Steve came to hang out with me in Sydney when I was there, and came down to Melbourne for my birthday after we moved there. He also came down to Melbourne and took Trishelle and I along Great Ocean Road. I later went to visit Steve in Wagga and he showed me around Junee. All in all, just a great friend over all. When I had to leave Australia it was so hard to say goodbye to such a great person.

I've been bugging Steve to come visit me in Canada since I got back here. He almost made it once, a couple years ago when he booked himself a ticket to come to the USA. However, his plans fell through and he wasn't going to make it.

Then, about a year ago things changed. Steve went into the hospital feeling dizzy and headachey and found out that he had a tumor growing on his brain. He under went chemo and radiation and all the things that go along with having a malignant tumor. Thankfully his friends and family have been kind enough to keep me in the loop as to what has been going on with him, even if the news hasn't always been good.

Lately the news was even worse - his tumor has returned and is now inoperable. The doctors aren't looking very hopeful and friends and family are spending all their time with him, sending good vibes and positive energy. I've been thinking about him a lot too lately.

The thing that makes me the most sad is knowing that Steve'll probably never make it here to Canada to visit me and see all the things I told him about, go all of the places I wanted to take him and generally let me repay the favour he did me by letting me stay with him when I was in Australia. And more so, when I get myself back there, he may not be there to hang out with and share a beer with and talk about "the old days".

I've known so many people battle with cancer, the crap that goes along with it. The heartache, the not knowing, the wanting all the problems to be over. There reaches a point where you stop wanting the person to get better and instead just want their suffering to end. You no longer want to remember a person as being sick, and instead want your lasting memories to be of them when they were happy and well. Either way, you just want the whole ordeal to tip one way or the other - get better or end.

I'm sending all the good vibes and thoughts to Steve's family, hoping that something, anything, happens to end their pain.