Saturday, December 27, 2008

Happy Birthday Linus

Today you are 4 years old!

WOW.

Only the good die young... Too young...

A friend of mine passed away Christmas day after a 2-year long battle with cancer. His second time fighting this terrible disease. He was only 33 years old. He left behind a young wife, and 2 very young children.

Him and I got to know each other through ball-hockey. Him and a few of his teammates (including his brother) joined my team. We eventually won a few championships. Over the next 5 years we bonded. He met his wife, I met my wife, both of us married and the team continued to thrive. Along came children and both of us too time off from playing to spend time at home. Our paths crossed again at functions for the children. He was a good guy. Considerate, always willing to stand up for a teammate and he was respected by everyone. He had the job, the house, the wife, and the sense of humour.

We had spoken several times in the past few months just to see how he was doing while fighting this terrible disease and each time he would sluff it off. He was sick, he knew that, and he knew beating this disease would be a hard battle but he was very positive and didn't want to dwell on his illness because it was like imposing his misfortune on others and that was not what he liked to do. Always positive, always considerate of others.

In the eulogy his wife gave, she mentioned the same things. He left them with a confidence that they would be able to continue without him. We all will. But we will never forget him for the person he was. He was a great guy.

Incidentially, his brother chose not to attend the funeral. Apparently old grudges are more important. I also feel sorry for his parents. They lost their son and have to deal with people talking about the poor decision their other son made. It is not about him but he wants people to talk about him, and they did. He's pathetic.

RIP my friend, my teammate. I'm sorry we never got to have that one last ball-hockey game so you could have retired on your terms. Everytime I go to play, I'll remember you and your number 12.

Gone but never forgotten.



I have cross-posted this post to my new blog as well. If you would like the URL for it, please send me an email and I will forward it along.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Snowmageddon

I survived!

Anyone else have any experiences with the storm that rocked the Southern Ontario / North Eastern USA? Only took me an hour and a half to make it home from the office yesterday... The ploughs made it out at 11pm last night... Nice! It's not like they didn't know it was going to snow, right?

Even had a chance to blog about it on the National Post live blog. Followed it on twitter as it became the top trend for most of yesterday.