The end of the line

It sure was a nice 3 day weekend. Wonderful long ride with Frank on Friday and a normal length one with the club yesterday. The shrimp boil for the 4th sure was great too. Thanks to Susan and David for that invite. I intended to ride today after church but didn't. The weather threatened (we got about a dozen drops of rain in all) and there were a few "to-dos" around the house so I ditched that idea. My legs were tight from the prior two days anyway; although a couple of laps around our subdivision loosened them up a little.

I happened to be home though when my cousin Carol called to say her brother Gary passed away from his colon cancer. He only found out about it 6 weeks ago, when he thought it was a matter of Crohn's acting up. Carol and I had a really good talk. We met for the 1st time in 2001 when each of us, doing family tree research, contacted the same person, who put us in touch with one another. Neither of us knew of the other. Her father and my grandfather were brothers. We have since gotten to be pretty friendly, and I care for her and her husband Bud very much. When I went to WI to meet them, I also met her sister Anita, my great aunt Marie, and of course, Gary. He was the kind of guy I wished I had more time to know better. I noted in a post a few weeks ago that we finally had a very touching email exchange and as it turns out, that was to be the end of the line for our conversations of any sort in this world. While Gary was not to my knowlege a person of faith, I had prayed previously that it might not be the end of our conversations in the next. He called his situation, "The reality of mortality." Facing one's death has a way of bringing things we set aside into a sharp focus. Perhaps time will show that he was led on the same path as me. I won't know until then.

I copied the emails to Carol, and I was very happy to hear that she found them of comfort. It worked out just fine that I was sitting here at my desk when she called and not out riding. Providentially, you might say. :)