Death sucks
I lost a friend recently to cancer.
Because he is not old and had no business whatsoever dying this young, it is different to deal with than a parent or someone older.
When I see something on TV that reminds me of him I think how he can not enjoy that anymore or how I cant tell him about it anymore.
We all have SO much to be grateful for just being alive, yet the way it works is we rarely are cognizant of that, at least I am not.
Anyway, here is to any friend or relative YOU have lost and here is to my friend
edit:
In honor of my friend I want to respond to everyone. And more than that I want to encourage us to have this discussion anytime someone needs it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And for you.
My condolences for the loss of your friend.
bone cancer and I heard his wife was making him TURKEY hot dogs because he was craving that even though chemo made him not hungry most of the time.
I went out and bought some NATHAN'S all beef hot dogs and embarrassed his wife into NEVER buying turkey dogs again 
and I got the report back that he LOVED them.
Life is something we often take for granted. Take care, friend.
and here's to you, too!
It is definitely different to deal with when someone we care about dies young.
My last husband (prior to this one) was my soul mate. He died at 38. I was actually angry at complete strangers I would see who weren't taking full advantage of the fact that they were alive. Even then I knew my anger was irrational, but that's the way it was. Of course I never said anything to them. That was 25 years ago, and I still look at things that happen in life from the "well, at least it's not death" point of view.
The experience made me value what I have instead of lamenting what I don't have, for the most part, anyway. We do all have so much to be grateful for, even on our dark days.
I think it is bringing us closer together...
Everything you've said is so true.
Three years ago, I lost a fellow DUer, a very close friend, WCGreen and I still miss him. He was intensely alive as well as political, and I know he would have had intelligent things to say about the mess we find ourselves in.
The pain is no longer excruciating but now and then........it can be very hard. We had so many good conversations.
Cheers to you and your friend! May your good memories help you heal. And they will........eventually.
I lost my husband too young to Type I DM in 2014. I miss him every day, so I know something of what you're feeling. Here's to remembering the good times with our absent loved ones.
may he still be on the journey.
Who wrote that?
But alive or changed in form the sentiment holds true.
We are of all things and will return in kind.
Eliot, this is from a lifetime atheist. Nature is what we all are.
I suffer your loss with you, my friend.
Maybe together, with this kind of love and attitude, we can make right the wrongs!
as our friend mr. vonnegut might have said 'thank you Eliot Rosewater for being you. so it goes.
We are for friends, even some who weren't really friends at all, who died too young, some very long ago now.
He was the calm diplomat and I was the outraged and pissed off asshole! 
He died of cancer three weeks before his sons high school graduation.
Death does suck and you are so right about gratefulness and how I need to remember that.
And I am deeply sorry for your loss. That feeling of wanting to talk to someone you lost is so part of grief.
Peace friend!
nothing we can do.
I guess we CAN eat better, exercise more and live happier, healthier lives.
If only I would do that! I actually do most of that and look pretty healthy but I need to WALK more!
I say look healthy because sadly I do have heart issues, genetic. But if I behave I should be able to live quite a while.
That will make up for decades of burning the candle at both ends! 
Stay healthy friend. We are an endangered species!
And, yeah, death really does suck. Obviously, it'll take awhile, but you'll get through it... and as you said, just try to remember all that you have to be grateful for, especially your friendships, and remember too that, yes, it's painful, but only because of all those wonderful memories you have of your friend and you're lucky to have those to hold on to.
So, yes, here's to your friend... clink, clink
I’ve had the same thoughts.
So sorry to hear about your friend.
and my dad 2 years later.
They always say it gets better ... and it does ... marginally ...
and you're so right.. "death sucks!".
I am so digging this sense of fellowship...
passes seemingly before their time. It just seems so unfair. I hope you are able to find some peace and the support you need to help you through this.
I lost my 52yo younger brother to melanoma last July. It was sudden and unexpected because he didn't want to trouble the rest of the family with it. He thought he would "beat it" and tell us after he was out of the woods. But that didn't happen. I had just 24 hrs before I watched him take his last breath, and never got to hear his voice again.
It tears me up, and always will.
I'm so sorry you lost your friend. I hope we'll all see and experience our beloveds again one day, on another plane.
In the meantime, cherish every single day. Live it well, in the names of those we loved so much, who no longer can.
My friend was diagnosed with liver cancer and was not a drinker. Docs said it was just a thing of bad luck.
He was not a candidate for chemo and so on.
I myself recently had a scare that turned out to be nothing, but for two weeks I didnt know. Crazy stuff.
BTW it is not uncommon for men, usually, to not seek medical help when they should, to think they can deal with it. Like your situation. I have another friend who has bone cancer, dont recall the name of the cancer and he ignored a major illness for a long time having not gone to a Dr. in over 15 years thinking he could handle it. Then when he finally did have to break down and go in to see a DR they told him what it was.
He now has a very far gone stage that maybe didnt have to happen. Sad.
I have a lot of experience in 12 steps and god do I hate that word, or I used to.
But I digress, thanks again and I hope we can all talk about this more often.
I am glad you had your friend and sorry he died. It is so wrong when they are just NOT THERE any more.
Yes, we should be grateful just to be alive. Life is too short.
I am so glad I talked about this, I think we need to talk about it.
Thank YOU
has just begun my friend. Not trying to be an ahole. People make a bigger impact on us than we surmise. AND, what's worse is, THAT'S something we forget too. The friend you have a 2 bit grudge match going on with, so you write them off. The parent who pisses you off to the point of dismissing them. (All the while having the upper emotional hand bc we know when the rubber meets the road, they'll almost always rescue you.). We live such different lives than before.
Not sure I'd want my kid to go to a school that even allows cellphones anymore. School should be an 8 hour socialization gig. I think we are losing our humanity.
Do something your friend would've wanted you to do. Maybe take a book and go sit w him and read. Read it aloud even.
I'm sorry about your chum. Glad you spoke up.
I cant lecture people on what an asshole Wayne Madsen is or Alex Jones so I will buy a homeless person lunch, instead. All things my friend would do.
She passed last Thursday ... I understand how you feel.
Sorry for your loss.
And yes, it is all to easy to forget how incredibly lucky we are to be alive, esp. considering the incredibly hostile, cold, frozen, dark, empty vacuum that is 99.9999999% of the universe. Life is a GD MIRACLE, which for all any of us knows, has never reached the point that humanity it is now at in the 6,000,000,000 years this (version of) a virtually endless universe has existed.
Certainly when you consider the intersection with such vastness of TIME, and the fact human civilization is such a tiny, tiny, tiny window in the calendar of the universe, it's extremely possible IMHO that human beings on the planet Earth are the only advanced sentient life AT THIS MOMENT ... in the entire universe ... which consists of as many stars as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.
Human life is indeed VASTLY under-appreciated. And WAY more fragile as an overall concept than most realize.
thanks for sharing
Yeah, death just sucks. No way around it.
I've been grieving the loss of my wife and soulmate since last September.
However, for me at least it's worth keeping in mind that for some people death is preferable to the life they have. My wife was one of those. Her body was such non-terminal wreckage that when the diagnosis of Stage III ovarian cancer came, on her 65th birthday, she welcomed it with enormous relief. She called it her "get out of jail free" card. She took no treatment, and opted for a medically assisted death as soon as her affairs were in order. She welcomed her death with eagerness, curiosity and grace.
I fully supported her decision, and in her place I'd have made the same choice - but I still grieve the loss of her love. And when I'm grateful, it's not just for being alive. It's for being able to appreciate being alive. Because when that appreciation is gone, it's no longer living, it's death-in-life.
I don't mean to piss in your cornflakes, because I really sympathize with your feelings. I'm just suggesting not to use so broad a brush that anyone who feels otherwise is made wrong.
must have valued your friendship, it's hard to loose someone. My sympathy to you.
Although my parents both lived long lives, I can certainly relate to your feelings of being suddenly caught short by something that reminded me of them or that they would have loved if I could have shared with them. My parents were both very good people but my dad especially had a purity of spirit that made me feel that a light was being extinguished and it motivated me to try to be a better person (unsuccessfully most of the time, I'm afraid) because it felt that otherwise there would be a net loss of goodness in the world. Maybe honoring your friend by intentionally doing something in his spirit that he would have done would help you when you feel sad. That could be donating to a charity or volunteering for a cause he supported, traveling in his honor to somewhere he never got to go or having an adventure he would have liked, etc. I traveled to India (for unrelated reasons) while I was still mourning my dad, and while on a dawn boat ride down the Ganges I set a little coconut shell candle afloat on the river while thinking of him with all of my spirit as a symbolic gesture. Shortly after my mom died, I was hiking in a stunningly beautiful national park in the Tibetan plateau at a very high elevation, and sang the Doxology in her honor and memory (because, despite several years of decline with dementia, she was still able to sing it in church on the last Sunday of her life, just short of her 94th birthday). I have a very dear relative, age 10, who has a terrible type of cancer that is classified as "terminal on diagnosis" but she is hanging in there with extraordinary grace and cheerfulness. Her mom recently sent me a picture of her at the beach, smiling in her little straw hat that covered her bald-from-chemo head, next to the message she had written in the wet sand: NEGU (for "Never, Ever Give Up" ). I am hoping and praying for a medical breakthrough for her and now too for your other friend with bone cancer. I am sure he appreciates your hot dog blessings! Another mantra I have taken in during my little relative's treatment for cancer is Nobody Fights Alone! You are right to let your DU friends know about this.
Best hopes for your friend
like that but as you said, crippled or handicapped or whatever the word is.
Thanks for sharing.
