He's going to die, too.

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Joined: 17 Feb 2013
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 22,612
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

29 Dec 2023, 5:46 am

Been a lot of that going around. Gotta be over 40 people I know that have died in the last few years. There were 3 in a week a month or so back.

But the one I'm talking about is special - a VIP person in my life -> the Herbalist I've mentioned over the years that I met ~12 years or so ago that combined with his Naturopathic Doctor father set me on a path to learning the things I needed to to figure out the root cause & treatment for my ASD symptoms that were off the charts bad back then.

It's become a Christmas tradition that I spoil his immediate family & partner with thoughtful gifts on Christmas Day. I went to see him/them in the afternoon (and returned later evening to see them open the paintings I had painted for them so I could explain who the artist is etc if they didn't know - buy the Herbalist knew and had a few pieces from him already from when he lived near that neighbourhood years ago.) and we both made comments about how we'd gained some weight this year.. and he says "But that's from the chemo."

I paused and just looked at him. He says "It's been 2 years." (of chemo.) I told him he never told me that.. he had only said that he had "an autoimmune thing." (which I never asked about because it wasn't any of my business.) He said "Stage 4.. Byeee.." with a little wave of his hand and a bit of an upbeat voice and slight smile. "that's why we (his siblings) got matching (butterfly) tattoos."

I think he's around 36 years old. Definitely not fair. I have no idea how long, what type of cancer, what organs are affected etc - only that it's metastasised to be multi-organ as per the medical definition of Stage 4.

He commented that he didn't think he had my phone number, tried to guess it lol yeah right - I gave it to him. I hope he calls/texts sometime and we catch up a bit. I don't have his phone number and haven't messaged/emailed etc for ~7 years now because he told me he "Only wanted to be present," and didn't like texts/messages/emails nor feeling the pressure of having to check them and respond to them etc. I never questioned his reasoning, I only respected his wishes. So, I see him in person once or twice a year for a few minutes if I happen to be passing by his parents house and see his vehicle there. He's messaged me once in ~7 years, one Winter, and I responded and we had a brief chat. The last time I saw him last Spring sometime I recall he said something about not calling or something and I told him "You told me not to," and I remember he said "I didn't mean Never," and that was the end of our conversation as he had things to do and a ferry to catch. But I've still never tried to contact him because he set the boundary that he didn't want messages or emails or phone calls, and whether that's because I annoy him or his partner or for any other reason isn't really any of my business. I do hope he does text or call. (I didn't even know he had a phone number - he was anti-cell phone number for so long, in part because he was pissed off that when he went travelling one time that he still had to pay his contract phone bill back home so he said f this and ditched having a phone at all for years.)

He said one more thing to me at the end of the night before I left when we exchange a customary hug -> "I love you." I replied "You, too." And I know he meant it because he's very honest, had never said it before because he would only ever say something like that if he meant it.. and, of course, because he's dying and the most honest people in the world are children and the dying. If they love you they will tell you so and mean it. Those 3 words alone make me wonder if he's on a very short timeline and had a "now or never," moment when he wanted to express himself. The unfinished tattoo sleeve - that's pretty cool - makes me think he's at least got enough time to have that artwork finished and leave a more beautiful corpse. But I have no idea and am just speculating and do hope he does contact me. I don't think he'd have asked for my phone number if he had no intention of contacting me tbh as he could have simply allowed life to carry on as it's been & I see him when I see him.

What a f*****g world. Can't help but have had some thoughts over the last few days about my own life and feeling like I'm underutilising it and the second lease on life I have thanks to him and his father. Maybe it'll be a little mortality motivation for me to do something. Well, based on his mortality, not mine I mean.

I guess I just felt like getting this off my mind and onto "paper," since I don't have any humans I really talk to about any of these things much. Obviously I haven't been able to talk to this friend much for years, and my other friend I worked for has an extremely busy life as tech company CEO and father of 3 etc so I don't bother him with s**t. I do have many many friends at the beach, and some of them I have some deeper conversations with once in a while At The Beach but none of them are people I would call/text/go to their homes to vent. I'd sooner just blah blah blah here on this forum and maybe take a long walk or hit the treadmill tomorrow or something.

Since he had just informed me of that Christmas afternoon, I did mention to him and his brother and siblings that it had been a weird year and I'd only worked for a few months of it, did some kiteboarding and motorcycling, but didn't feel it was an appropriate time to tell him/them that my father had passed last May. Just felt like I didn't need to add any sadness or distract from the moment he'd shared with me, so I kept conversation about the artist and some very surface level family things of not much importance in the grand scheme of life.

Crazy though.. someone so incredibly healthy, who's entire life and diet and activities revolved around being healthy, healing, healing others, eating naturally, avoiding chemical s**t storm products of all kinds etc etc and Boom; Cancer. That's some kind of f*****g BS if you ask me.

If there's a bright side, he didn't waste his youth working every day all year long. He lived to travel and has seen all kinds of places all over the world that I'll never even visit the .com's of. Ha! Everything happens for a reason and I suppose he got the wandering traveller explorer gene and felt compelled to just goooooo for his entire youth Because he wasn't going to be able to in any senior years. Guess I'm glad he followed that intuition and did his thing.

FWIW to people here, it's my non-medical opinion that he, too, is mildly on the spectrum and if I had to give him a "genre," he's definitely a "Peter Pan," type aspie in all the best ways. Wild that the gardens and plants he's planted are likely to long outlive him, but, also kind of neat as I suppose in a way they are his babies. Reminds me: One year he told me he wanted a moon.. a handmade moon shaped garden decoration that could be lit from within with LED lights and hung from a tree in their garden on a small island he spends his Winters at. (I've never been to that island, wouldn't expect to be invited as his partner is annoyed by me but very polite towards me.) Makes me think now in this moment that maybe I should get a yoga ball and some fibreglass and resin and make and paint a moon, install some lights, hook it up to a marine battery and a switch and solar panel and finish it ready to be hung from whatever tree he's picturing. Hmm - maybe - I might have time.