My heart is heavy

I have blogged on here before about our dear family friend who has been dealing with finding out he has stomach cancer for over a year now. He has the best spirit of anyone I have ever known. With all the surgeries and pain and everything he is dealing with he always has a smile on his face and always genuinely asks how others are doing. Just an amazing man who is so dedicated to his wife and 5 kids.

This past Wednesday he had severe pain in his stomach and was taken by ambulance to the hospital where it was decided that he needed surgery and probably just had scar tissue from his previous surgeries. He went in for surgery Friday morning, while his wife was at home with the kids. About half way through the surgery the hospital called his wife - outcome not good. They found the cancer was covering his intestines and they do not feel there is anything else they can do for him because of the aggressiveness of it.

Mr. Man and I went to the hospital Friday evening to hug his wife. It is heart breaking to me. She told us that she has told him of all the visitors that have been in and out throughout the day and his question to her was "Why are they coming?" In his mind he just had a surgery, no big deal. He has a lot of hope that the doctors are wrong. She had to try to convince him that this is serious. The doctors are telling her the goal right now is to get him to eat and then send him home to have "quality time" with his family before the inevitable. He seems to have a lot of hope and faith God will heal him. He is, as my husband pointed out, the eternal optimist. But the rest of us are, either realists or maybe we have less faith than Tom but either way we are trying to prepare ourselves for what may come.

Of course, I pray for God's will and sure I hope that means Tom's body will be healed, but I also know that may not happen.

Tom's 9 year old daughter over heard some phone conversations and has figured out dad is not going to make it much longer. She in turn shared it with her 8 year old brother. They wrote their mom a letter, which I have not read but heard it was just heart wrenching.

I sit here and cry as I type this. I pray for my dear friend Tom who may never know what he has meant to me and my family. The weird thing about this is that Tom and Katie and their 5 kids were supposed to have dinner with us Friday night. We had planned that before Tom's surgery was scheduled. We really thought we would be able to reschedule that dinner in about a week.

My heart is heavy right now. "Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today" because we never know when our loved ones will be taken from us.