Update

For starters, I'm no longer playing cribbage on the train. Two weeks into our game, my card partner suggested we hang out some upcoming weekend. I gracefully turned him down, asking that we keep our arrangement to weekday card-playing. He replied that the other players all socialized off the clock and that he took my refusal as a personal insult. I wished him all the best and walked away.

While it's no skin off my back, I was slightly saddened that people throw out perfectly good relationships because they try to make them something they're not. Now I sit across from a nice girl my age. Half the ride, we discuss our days, our friends, and how it feels to stare up the company totem pole. The half, she reads and I do Sedoku. Six straight weeks of reading up on the current of the American public education system will cause one to take up Sedoku for at least a month. That means I have another 24 days of Sedoku. This is not a bad thing.

* * * * *

My father is not well. A virus put him in the hospital for a week or so. He's home now. But again, he's not well. It doesn't seem like the January procedure did it's job. We think it's because, while scleroderma can be contracted from the environment, it's in Dad's genetic code. So I guess we took scleroderma stem cells out and put them back in. What can you do? The doctors have no timetables, no chances of this or that. They're only certain of one thing: the scleroderma is taking its toll. So we're rolling with the punches and making the most of this time.

I constantly remind myself certain things: 1) We've truly done everything we can. 2) Our efforts to save Dad simultaneously brought together friends and strangers, spread such awareness about this disease, and raised a significant amount of money for the National Federation of Transplants. 3) We all gotta go somehow. Death is part of life... this is what we signed up for. And that's why I'm honestly at a loss for words when people say "I'm sorry." Sure, many of you have told me that, and I do appreciate the sentiment. I've said "I'm sorry" too. But think about it. You're sorry someone's dying? If everyone dies eventually, we should be glad they lived instead. You might say "Well, I'm sorry he's dying young." That implies that we should have enjoyed more years with someone. To that, I'd say that with 7 billion people on this earth, let's focus on being grateful that we met that person at all. No matter what life serves up, there are at least two ways of looking at it. I choose positive. This is not a front. It's a choice, my lifestyle. I humbly offer these ramblings as a suggestion for another perspective that I've found quite comforting.

To be clear, I don't know if Dad's got days or years left. That's just the point... I don't know. So I'm making the most of it.

Let's see, now... (looks down at checklist)
Job's great. Still single. Go Pats. I think that wraps it up for now...

Rube