A sad note

A sad note was Originally Posted on September 10, 2004 by lavarock

This morning I awoke to find a message telling me that a friend has passed away.

A number of weeks ago I heard that George was sick and with trepidation, I called him and he said it was true, pancreatic cancer. As many know, it is almost always fatal.

One website relates:

[i]Each year about 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas; more than 60,000 in Europe. Most of these will have passed away by the end of the first year. [/i]

[i]The median survival for untreated advanced cancer of the pancreas is about 3 ½ months; with good treatment this increases to about six months.[/i]

I have now had a relative and two frinds die from this cancer.

George came to work at Hewlett Packard as a System Manager. As a member of our team, we would keep computer mainframes and servers running, update software and troubleshoot problems. George was more comfortable with the servers and I more so with the mainframes.

There are two things that he could never quite figure out. The first was “Mark, how can you be so cheap? You drive all over town to save a few dollars only to go gamble it away at a casino”.

Well, I tried to explain to him that because I was able to save money elsewhere is why I could afford to take these trips to the casinos. By the way, many times I won!

The other thing George couldn’t understand (well, maybe he undertstood it, but never believed it) was that I would soon leave Hewlett Packard and move to Hawaii.

The decision to leave HP was more an offer of theirs to pay me to leave. I gladly accepted their generous offer. As readers of my blog know, I left HP and visited back and forth between Georgia and Hawaii many times and only a year ago did I finally move here for good.

My last conversation with George a few weeks ago was somewaht sad. Both of us knew he was not long for this life and I again told him that I wished he could travel here and see why I love the islands so much. We both knew that would never happen.

At the end of our talk he said he was glad that I finally got here (although he was sure I’d never make it). He also said, “I’m glad that I were able to follow your dream. It’s a shame most people never do!”

[i]Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true [/i]

Amen George. Aloha and A hui ho (goodbye until we meet again).