We toss around the word love like it’s a dog toy drenched in puppy spit. We love our family/friends/partners. We love our jobs and careers. We love ice cream. It’s like we are dissecting the massive awesomeness that is truly loving something. Breaking it down into tiny rational and tangible pieces so we can wrap our little human minds around the concept.
Love can be a terrifying thing. It’s probably one of the emotions that we avoid the most in life. We make excuses…say we are too scared, too independent and confident, too too too…and we hide away from this beautiful phenomenon.
Most of the time it is one of these things or the other. FAR too often we miss out. Somehow we think that it is too fragile and perfect, that we will somehow break it if we get our hands on it.
In the past week some bloggers I admire a lot have posted this plea from a girl named Brandy. I’ve never met Brandy. Unfortunately I’ve never even read her blog before. But given my Year of Love and more importantly, the raw beauty of this note, I had to share it with all of you as well.
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My name is Brandy. And I have a blog.
And a plea.
I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds. Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog- as personal as the dude that I adore (who I actually met through my blog- single ladies, let that be a very good reason to blog, the possibility of meeting someone as wonderful as my man), but I need your help. And it involves my dude.
He’s a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He’s the kinda guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job. He’s the guy who sent flowers to me at school- dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He’s a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred. He’s made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He’s listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.
The holidays have hit us hard. He’s recently been told he may have something called multiple myeloma- an incurable cancer, that gives a person an average of five years of continued life. Though this news has came as a shock, he continues to be exactly who has always been- spending his time worrying about me, rather than worrying about himself. He’s the most selfless individual I know- (he stayed late on Christmas Eve to work, so his co-workers could leave early) and a post like this would never be something that he would promote or encourage but when I’m overwhelmed and feeling helpless, the blogging community has always given me tremendous support and comfort, two things I desperately need at this time.
As I write this, the future is uncertain and we aren’t sure what’s happening. He’ll need to see an oncologist soon, to verify what’s going on in his body. My hope is that everyone who reads this think positive thoughts and if you are a person who prays, could you add him to your list? (You can refer to him as ‘brandy’s hot awesome dude’). If you don’t pray, please keep him in your heart.This cancer is only a possibility and I believe that the prayers and positive thoughts of people can make sure it never becomes a reality.
I want to give a big thank you to the blog owner who scraped their original blog plans and graciously put this up. My goal is to get as many people as possible to see and read this post. If you are reading this and want to help, copy and paste my plea into your blog or send a link through twitter, so more people can keep him in their thoughts. I would be so very grateful (even more grateful than I am to my friend who first showed me the picture of Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. If you haven’t seen it, google it. You. Are. Welcome).
I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making- but this is life. Right now. And I’m throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you and if you know anything regarding MM- please email me (my email is on my blog). This isn’t a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It’s just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be with the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next. Maybe it is silly, but I really do believe that positive thoughts can make a huge difference. Thank you for reading this and if you haven’t already?
Please tell someone you love them today.
I did.
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Don’t miss your opportunities to let love in. And to put love out to the world. It’s amazing…and wonderful…and messy…and beautiful…and unbending (as Brandy so eloquently states)
Love is strong. It can handle whatever you might throw at it.
Update: Hot Awesome Dude does, in fact, have myeloma. Heartbreaking…
Photo Credit – Getty Images: Stone Collection (Photographer Laurence Monneret)
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