I haven't been philosophical on my blog for at least a week, but recent events in the life of Fat Cyclist have caused me to start thinking about what's important. I've said it before and I'll undoubtedly say it again. It's amazing to me how much you can feel like you know people you've never met, simply from reading their blogs regularly.
Fat Cyclist (aka Elden Nelson) seems like a genuinely nice guy and his blog is funny and interesting. I'm clearly not the only person who thinks so. Last Friday, Fat Cyclist posted on his blog that he had joined Facebook and when I looked at his profile about 15 minutes ago, he had 591 friends. (I have 32.) He routinely has hundreds of comments on his blog posts. I'll admit to some serious blog envy.
In many ways, he seems to live a charmed life. He has beautiful children, a wonderful wife, lots of friends, a good job, close family. He's also something of a celebrity in the cycling community and gets to be a guest panelist at Interbike. The lists goes on. He's got it made, right?
There's just this one thing that mars it—that big evil "C" word. Elden's wife of 20 years has cancer. Sometimes, you can read his blog without thinking about it. He'll go for a long time without mentioning it, except to try to raise money for the cause. Periodically, though, he'll give an update on how Susan is doing. Lately, things have gone drastically downhill and it really gives me pause.
His attitude seems to be so great, given the fact that he must be going through utter devastation. He's clearly trying to be strong for his wife and his four children.
I don't know why cancer is still out there. I have no idea why when I was in college I had to watch my grandma, who was still young and who was someone I really couldn't bear to lose, waste away from lung cancer. Also disturbing is the fact that every day, I watch my husband participate in a habit he can't seem to break, that's been shown to cause cancer. It's scary.
I don't know if cancer will be oblierated in my lifetime. What I do know is, if you haven't read Fat Cyclist's post today, you should and you should take it to heart. Because whether it's cancer or something else, someone you love could be gone at any point and you could be left regretting what you didn't say.
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2 comments:
It's painful just reading it, but you just have to know.
Cancer is just so ugly. It has impacted so many of my family members that I took out additional cancer coverage for myself a few years ago.... gosh, that sounds so morbid. I'm glad you mentioned Fat Cyclist, he has definitely impacted a lot of people (not just cyclists) through his blog.
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