What do you say when you just lost your friend?

Yesterday my friend Arlene called me to let me know her brother Michael had passed away. We cried. We had hoped and prayed for a different ending. I guess his body just got too tired. He passed away in his sleep peacefully. He had been suffering greatly. His family has become very dear to us. Our hearts will be forever linked to them and we will always love them and never forget who they are and the love, friendship and support that we have received from them.

On Thursday when we saw the doctor in clinic we asked him if we could go home for this fund raiser that Andrew had put together. He Said" If you go I didn't know about it!" He laughed at Michael and said,"It would be nice if you could be stable for more than 48 hours". He actually has been for over a week, so we went home on Saturday. Andrew put together a concert for Cancer, a fund raising event to make some money for the Alberta Cancer Foundation. They helped us with some of our expenses here in Calgary. It is hard for a young person to know what to do when something like this happens. There is a sense of helplessness, but he channeled that into something meaningful. He and Danielle played. Andrew's work provided baking for donations. Both of the kids put together CDs for sale for the cause. It was a great event. We had fun. Michael got a little tired and we had to take him home to rest. How proud I was of their efforts. He called me today to tell me they had made $750. He was pretty excited. Overall the trip home just made us more homesick. We really dragged out our leaving to come back, finally we decided we just better go before it got dark. SO here we are back in Calgary, anxiously waiting for Michael's appointment tomorrow to see when we can go home again.