Hi Guys! I'm sorry if you were looking for a happy email, 'cuz this isn't gonna be it.

I was SO excited when I logged onto my email and saw an email from my friend Erin in California! I'm sure I told most of you, but she was diagnosed with Breast cancer after returning from a MLB park tour to honor her father (and mother) in raising money for cancer research (as they had both passed from Cancer). It was just a quick one, but since I'd started a Blog for our group of friends, she re-directed us there. The story she wrote was one of optimism on her part, but revealed find 3 new tumors, all malignant on different parts of her brain.

It leads me to wonder...once again, what is the reason behind this? I keep hearing "everything happens for a reason" but it seems that less and less the reasons make any sense, if they're there at all. I first met Erin after I graduated High School, though I had known her long before. As a junior (maybe sophomore?) in high school, we belonged to Prodigy and I stumbled across a board called Name That Tune. Now, being I LOVE doing those types of things, I clicked on the marker and forever found friends. My high school graduation present was a week in California with Erin. We seemed to get along right away and I had an amazing week as I met her mom and dad and stayed in their house in Campbell and she took me to out with her friends, to Disneyland, and on a tour of her favorite places to eat in California. (I must admit, Erin's got VERY good taste! :) ) A week or so later, we assembled in boston to meet the "rest" of the gang and everyone got their first taste of Erin! :) It was a wonderful, amazing experience. She is like a burst of sunshine and completely embraces life and lives it well. Erin (and maybe me in someway) is an eternal kid. She has had jobs, but each prospect seems like more fun than where she is (including a brief stint at Law school, try at Acting, nanny, internet guru) and she moves on. she has had some "interesting" relationships but has never settled down and for a tremendous love of kids, has never had any. She is a wonderful Aunt to her brother's children and a good friend. So, with all my great memories, and amazing respect and love for Erin, please forgive me for wanting to know Why?!?!?

It seems (and I'm not sure if it's a front) that Erin has an amazing spirit through this. She believes the treatment they're trying will work and this time next year she'll be cancer free! She has asked for our positive thoughts and prayers, or whatever we believe to send her toward recovery faster!

I guess I'm still in shock, although I believe if anyone can fight the odds it'll be her. But I know me, and I'd be wanting to know why? In Battle Royale style I'd be challenging God for a reason. "If there's a reason, don't ya think I should be let in on it?", I'd say. Suddnely, all the worrying I've been doing about turning 27 seems petty, but at the same time, completely justified. If life can be snatched away (and I'm not saying it will be), or you could lose years of your life just fighting for it, isn't each year you're not doing what you've ultimately dreamed of important? "You're young" people say, "You've got time", but maybe it's all a farce. Maybe we really don't. And when faced with your own mortality, have you really achieved everything you wish to achieve? And if you haven't, why not? What's holding us back?

I'll admit I had a kind of AHA moment a couple years ago when talking to Karen. I was living in Greensboro and upset because it seemed many people had dreams and goals about careers and I'd never had one. Couldn't think of one dream I'd ever had (minus the one with the teeth falling out...'cuz we're not talking that kind of dream), Kare said she could. I'd always wanted to, and figured I would get married and have kids. Not just with anyone, but finding the right person , etc., etc. And I realized she was right. However, that's a real horrible dream to instill in a control freak. There's nothing you can do about it. Can't work hard and it'll come, can't actively search it out (without completely deflating your faith in it at all), so you just have to sit, and wait, and know it will come. But what if it's not supposed to? Can we have dreams that are never supposed to come true? that aren't part of the 'greater plan" ? And if so, what kind of sick joke is that? To instill a dream in someone knowing it won't come true?

I wonder what Erin's dreams were, or if she really has any at all. Maybe, as I've said before, she was so engrossed in living life, she never took time to dream it? And if so, and something happens to her, will she feel fulfilled, or will there be so much more she wishes she could've done? Which is worse, to dream or not to dream?

I've seen people I've cared about greatly who have dreams. And as the years pass, some of them realize theirs and change paths, and some of them are still struggling year after year to relaize theirs. It frustrates me where some succeed and others don't. What's the magic password to the dream realization express? What can we do to achieve those dreams faster, when some of them are our of our hands? Maybe the key to dreams is to realize they mostly lie at the hands of someone or something else. That all we can do is as much as we can, and while we wait, we must create and pursue other dreams in other avenues. As with mine, I am still hoping it is meant to come true (well, a little). But perhaps, while I wait for "the right time" (as the thought of forever...and trusting someone else's definition of forever recently makes me hyperventilate.), I am supposed to push towards a "dream" and create one career or family wise. Maybe what I need to "create the right time" is a priority shift from "why not me?" to "what can I do in the meantime", thus creating the "right time" for my "greater plan".

And maybe Erin has a reason to. Maybe she will get through all this and realize the preciousness of live and the little time we have to do anything with it. Maybe she won't (in which case I'll be back to "why?") and was just sent as an angel to bless us for a short while with her love of live, vivacity, and courage. or maybe, just maybe, there isn't really a reason for any of this at all.


Please keep Erin in your thoughts and prayers as well. I'm sensing she'll need as many as she can get! :)