Life is short.
The news is sinking in and my heart is breaking quickly. My good friend, Derek Arnold, has passed from this earth. His girlfriend, Jessi, who I have also known for more than ten years now, informed us that Derek passed peacefully and quickly early this morning after such a fight against cancer. Our greatest fears have been realized. My heart is breaking and my mind can't quite figure it out. This shouldn't happen. Since I found out a few days ago that's all I can think about. This shouldn't be happening. Not now, not him. He and Jessi should be getting married like I envisioned the other night. I dreampt of an event so joyous, so deserving for those two who are so full of love. Music and laughter and booze all in shades of gold and silver. A funeral is not part of the plan. This was never part of what we had all hoped and prayed for. Jessi should be coming down the aisle dressed in white, not black. Derek should be laughing, beer in hand, making light about something going on in the world. He just graduated three weeks ago. He had the strength to walk across that stage. He should be planning his next move, having his crazy "what the hell do I do now with this college degree??" moment. He should be freaking out about the stupid petty stuff like the rest of us. He should be feeling invincible like the rest of us. This shouldn't happen.
He was 24. He was a badass. We was ridiculously tall and always good for a hug. He was a person you could always count on to make you smile. He was a college graduate, something he had worked so hard for. He was the middle child in a set of five boys. He loved his family and everyone loved him as it's been apparent by the messages left on his and Jessi's facebook pages. I'm going home for the funeral on Friday and maybe that's when it will all sink in, when there's an empty chair next to Jessi. He was the "light" in her life. They were going to get married, start the next phase of their life together. They were going to get past all this medical jargon and frightening procedures and symptoms and they were going to live a blissfully normal life. You shouldn't die at 24.
This is the second time in five years that the fraternity has lost a brother to cancer. It's like deja vu. All this weekend, my sisters and friends who are here in Portland, kept reminiscing about Gabe and when he passed in 2006. We're all about to make that body and mind numbing pilgrimage back to where our friends came from. We'll all cram in a small car, in our best clothes with tissues in hand, to pay our respects to someone we lost much too soon. Until then, we have each other and that's what's getting us through. Love, -kp-
