Curve ball...

I'm sitting here in a terminal in the distant land of Florida--Tampa to be exact. My plane which was supposed to leave a long time ago is not leaving for another long while. And so here I sit. I guess I could be really irritated. I could even get mad. Or sad. I have a wife and 3 kids at home that are patiently awaiting my arrival, which now looks like it may not be until tomorrow if this crappy mid-western weather carries on the way it is (which is where my plane currently sits--in Chicago). But as I've come to realize in my short 42 years of life that there is a choice that can be made, and I am choosing to chill out and not worry too much. And besides, being stuck in an international airport as beautiful as Tampa with a laptop and free wireless internet and a nice ice cream store nearby makes me wonder really, what in the hell do I have to worry about?

Nothing.

But I guess what's even worse for me is this feeling that has come over me in the last few minutes. And the timing of why this sadness has come into my life is even more curious, because of my last posting (read the one below this one so you can get a handle on my mind set). The only way my puny human intellect can wrap its arms around things is by giving the awfully immature summary of "I must be going through a test of what I just posted."

What am I talking about?

Well, I was sitting here in the airport, watching people going by, looking at my stupid meaningless Facebook account, trading insults and jokes via text message with my wife, answering some work emails from my fire department friends...in a nutshell, minding my own business. And up pops an email which is actually a text message from a cell phone number I don't recognize. And the message...well...it made me stop for a second and take a deep breath for sure. By the look of what was typed, something was wrong. Let me do a little historical trip for a minute before I go on....and you'll have to excuse me. This posting is as therapeutic for me as it may be completely too much info for you. I apologize. You may understand in a bit more.

When I was in high school, specifically my senior year, and with all the VAST experience I had had with girls up to this point (I'm being sarcastic...I dated a clarinet player for approximately 14 minutes, and dated a friend from my neighborhood for about 2 months before her dad decided I wasn't good enough and CERTAINLY not Christian enough), I fell head over heels for yet ANOTHER flute player in band. Out of respect for her privacy, I'm going to not publish her name. I think she'd appreciate that since apparently I have 24.5 million people reading my words at any one moment (I KID--which is strange, I really shouldn't be kidding right now). Anyway, "M" and I had what could be described as a great relationship that ran the gamut of teenage angst and drama and love and hurt and jealousy and "end of the world"-isms. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. But it was a tumultuous time where in the end our lives quietly went seperate directions--she into the working corporate world, and me...I don't know. Where the hell did I go anyway? Well, I ended up at the fire department which is sort of a defining moment for me because a LOT of things happened right around the time. My dear mother died, I got hired with the OCFA and started my career, and I met my wife.

But over the years M and I stayed in contact somehow. I don't remember exactly how I was able to track her down by email several years ago but I did or maybe she did. I can't remember. But we've stayed in contact, updating each other on the happenings in our lives. I've always found it strangely comforting to be able to have that one link in M to my past. In any event, it turned out she had been working in the next city over from where I had been living, and that's where she met her husband and blah blah blah.

Fast forwarding to today--Tampa, me, a laptop, free internet...life is good. And an email popped up from M's sister, a person who I truly had not talked to for probably 20 years. It simply said, "This is M's sister. Call me immediately." Something was wrong. I'm too much of a public safety professional to look at an email like that and think "Oh she's probably wanting to invite me to a baseball game". Something was wrong. And the timing made sense too. You see, when I got to Tampa, I emailed M to say hi and "check in", something we seem to do every so often via email. And M always answers me within 12 hours or so, and when she hadn't I thought that she and her family were probably out vacationing or whatever...I mean, there's a million reasons why someone doesn't email you back right away. Computers break, plans change, things happen, life is what it is. I wasn't worried at all, but I filed her non response away as something that I was going to get to later when I returned to a NORMAL state....like CALIFORNIA!!! Don't get me started...

But...something was wrong now.

I immediately called the number, and to my surprise, M answered the phone. And the news wasn't good. She had had a seizure on Friday night, and had been in the hospital since then, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I was dumbfounded. I'm sitting in an airport terminal, with crappy phone reception, hearing the former love of my life and someone who I had "dreamed" with about what it would be like to be married some day to her and she who would tease me ENDLESSLY that if we DID get married that I would be FORCED to dance at our reception...here she was telling me that she had a brain tumor. After 14 years of marriage and 3 kids, I've learned a great deal about being compassionate and loving and helpful and the like, but I still get tongue-tied when faced with something so...well, I'm not one to be delicate...but something so devastating. I still have problems saying "I'm so sorry" because I feel like there's so much more I need to say...or do...or fix...I'm a man. Give me a hammer and a screwdriver, some duct tape, and wam bam thank you mam I'll take care of that tumor for you.

But I couldn't. And I uh uh uh uh...great. You haven't talked to M in 20 years, and here you sound like a freakin' ape on the phone with her. What could I do? What could I say? I told her I was so sorry. I told her to "keep me in the loop". WTF, TURNER?!?!?! LOOP!?!?!?! She has a tumor in the brain, and here I am talking fire department talk to her. LOOP!?!?! Great. Size 11 in my mouth--someone call the Foot Removal Squad.

I AM so sorry. I am TERRIBLY TERRIBLY concerned. I strangely want to drop what I'm doing and DO SOMETHING--even though I have my own wife and children and family and she has hers. Strange. But I just didn't know what to do. Her sister got on the phone with me, and we talked. Instead of doing this with M, I instead told her sister (as if I'm an expert...but I certainly can SOUND like one I guess) that medical technology is SO advanced and I know two people that have bounced back from brain surgery and to not worry and to be strong...words for M. Not her sister. But maybe for her sister too.

And I think about what I typed below about prayer and about prayers being answered. And I know that life SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS when things like this happen and you want to just scream at the top of your lungs WHY WHY WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????? God knows I have screamed that--LITERALLY--in my lifetime. WHY!?!?!?!?

But therein is the secret to trying to wrap our brains around things like this. Choices. You decide what you want to do with what's handed to you. And then you take each day as it goes. I have a friend from church who is the most amazing man on the planet. He has the WORST FORM OF LEUKEMIA right now...THE worst. Reading his story on CaringBridge and seeing how he's handled things is a DIRECT and TANGIBLE testament to me that you CHOOSE your roads...your reactions...and actions...and you do the best. Or you don't and you curl up and you die. My friend, who is only a couple of years older than me, should be dead now. He's not. Through aggressive medical technology, treatment, INSISTENT and PERSISTENT desire to get the VERY VERY best, and not to mention, his unbelievable attitude and will and desire to be the best example of his religion he could be, he's almost totally beat this. It's not a joke--10 years ago, he would have been dead a long time ago. My other friend from church, 55 year old woman, THE GREATEST example of the "perfect" grandma, happy, positive, loving...started feeling dizzy one day. Went in, got checked out, and she had a tumor in her brain, and it was in a really really bad area. But with medical technology and aggressive treatment and her positive outlook and I would think TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE (and I'm not being melodramatic) praying for her and just supporting her with emails and thoughts, she came out of her brain surgery with a little hearing loss and a bit of vertigo. But she's alive!!! She's happy!!! She's grateful!!!

I don't know if M will ever read this--nor do I know what's going to happen with her. All I know is that I'm being challenged right now to put my money where my mouth is. I need to also step up to the plate and not give any lip service to the concept of prayer, but to be active in it and do my best to do what I CAN do as a friend from long ago.

I told her to "hang in there"...I hope she knows that without me being "in the way" and certainly not trying to take the place of the husband she already has, that I will be "with her", if anything, in spirit.

Hang in there, M.