"You Gotta Have Faith"

As I continue to lament my misfortune and procrastinate in really focusing on the wonderful highlights of what proved to be a life interrupted, I stop for a moment and find one of those highlights this evening. I spoke with a very dear friend tonight and strictly out of affection for her, and I know she'll assume this to be a capricious compliment, she's quite a "broad". I've an umbrella of friends who've looked after me during the last 18 or so months, and most assuredly the last 2 weeks and I'd be remiss in not giving them credit. Most certainly my friends in California whose pups went and are still going through the same disease that befell my boy. But for this "broad" who has been, and I hate to use the term "battling" for it connotes some time of war to me, living with her own cancer. For that's what she's doing...living with it and for all practical purposes, right now ahead of the contest. She lost her beloved Aussie not to long ago, from the same disease. I've asked the question of why must our beloved friends be intercepted with such a insidious disease? It's unpleasant enough that humans have to go through this. And so it is with this lady. And yet, during this process, her resolve is surely tested again and again and she maintains her self confidence and reliance on her main constant-God. Her family continues to provide that shroud of love and devotion to her. And during my global sadness, she has been the mother that I so desperately miss. The one that if she were here, I know I could lay my head in her lap and cry like a baby, and somehow, things would be better. I've always contended that I have relied on an extraordinary amount of Hope, but you can't have enough Hope unless you have Faith. Here's looking at you....you Ol' Broad.