Rant #1,436: A Mother of a Day

My family had a nice Mother's Day.

As always, we went to the cemetery to visit my mother in law's grave. She passed away right after my wife and I got married.

We went with my family, and with my brother in law, his fiancee, and my father in law.

After we paid our respects, we went home, brought in a huge amount of Chinese food, and had over my sister and her husband, my wife's other brother and his wife, and, of course, my parents.

It was a good day.

This was kind of tempered by what some would call a blip on the radar at this point in time.

Someone I grew up with and I was friendly with, I learned late last week, had died of pancreatic cancer in mid-February. He was just 57 years old.

It was kind of strange the way that I discovered that he was no longer with us.

His birthday came up on Facebook on May 8, and as always, I sent him out a birthday greeting. Many others did too.

Ron was a true left of center character. He saw the world a bit differently than a lot of other people, and I think a lot of it had to do with being teased beyond reason for a skin condition that he had as a child.

Whatever the case, while he was not a good friend of mine during my childhood, yes, he was at least a very good acquaintance.

Anyway, I made my birthday wish, and someone from the old neighborhood contacted me and said that he had passed on February 15.

I actually spread the news myself on Facebook, and I think a lot of people were taken aback.

Here, we were wishing him a happy birthday, and the guy wasn't even around anymore.

Numerous messages followed, and we heard that he died of perhaps the most evil of all the cancers.

I had been in contact with him off and on for the decades that followed our childhood. He was one of those people who was on and off Facebook, so you couldn't judge his situation by simply looking at this social network.

I actually saw him about 10 years ago or so. I learned that the skin malady he had was no longer visible, that he had married, and I believe that he had adopted his wife's kids.

When I was holding my former neighborhood's big reunion, he told me time and time again that he would attend, but he never did--using hindsight, I bet that this was around the time that he learned that he was sick. 

He lived in Tampa, worked for an airline, and had pretty much settled down to a normal life, like most of us had.

And then I found out this bit of news, kind of stumbled upon it.

It kind of highlights your own mortality, your own sense of purpose and sense of being.

Yes, it sounds like I am overstating things, but when I found out what I did about him and his passing, I have to say that I was stunned.

I hope he went without any pain.

Here's to Ron. Versus a lot of obstacles, you did pretty well for yourself, and you had a lot to be proud of.

We had fun in those early years of our lives, although we often didn't see eye to eye.

R.I.P.