Our friend Jeff has died….that makes 3 deaths this year….

I am really sad tonight Steve.  Our friend Jeff has died.

I am aware that someone, an anonymous donor, gave $5,000 to the Jeff and Bree "Go Fund Me" page. I don't know if that was YOU Stephen, but it happened the day after I wrote to you about it.  If it was you, then thank you so much. You have no idea how much that means to Jeff's wife. (Bree is her scene name. Maureen is her real name).  Whomever it was that donated so much money should know that it was a huge help.  But her pain has just begun.  This ending of her husband's life has only started the hardships and financial concerns that she'll have to deal with for the rest of her life.  They were married 12 years.

Jeff was only 46.  I will be 46 in April.  Needless to say, this has really hit a lot of people, including myself, very hard.  Camp will never be the same without him.

To anybody reading this, I cannot stress enough to GET A DOCTOR TO CHECK YOU OUT EVERY YEAR.  Jeff owned his own business, but only had medical insurance for his employees, not for himself.  He never went to a doctor for check ups.  Diabetes lurked inside him for a very long time, and he never knew it.  It caused his kidneys to fail, his liver to fail, and eventually everything in his body just shut down completely.  It happened in a matter of only 3 months.

Maybe……maybe, if the new Affordable Care Act had already been implemented, Jeff might have had a better chance at coming through and living longer.  We will never know.  We had just been to camp six months ago, and he seemed healthy and happy and just fine.  He did complain of being very thirsty and tired, but nobody realized the symptoms and what they meant.  It is just so sad.

And to happen just before Christmas….I mean….that will haunt all of us in our camp family every year.

After Christmas and New Years Eve, there will be a memorial service to celebrate Jeff's life.  So that's how my 2014 will begin.

I've been home alone since Friday, (took my mom to Toledo Thursday evening to meet my sister who then took her back to Michigan to visit), and Pete has been in DC visiting our friend Judy.  He'll be home tomorrow evening.  My mom will return January 4th.

Christmas usually makes me feel content and thankful of my blessings, and generous towards others. This year, though, I am thinking of Florence and missing her.  I'm thinking of Manya and feeling so sad that she will never get to read the book that I've never been able to publish.  It's been written for many years, just sitting.  I just can't publish it.  I don't know why.  I had every intention of giving it to her, and to my Nesse as well, as a gift of love.  But now Manya is gone and will never get to read it.  I don't know if I'll have it published before Nesse dies.

And now I think about Jeff…I still see him in my mind, lying in that hospital bed, looking so horribly ill, so yellowed and thin….he didn't look like the Jeff we had just seen six months before.   I think about him almost constantly because I also have diabetes.  I am also now very afraid that I may die the same way he did.  I mean, I have medications to keep it controlled, I try to watch what I eat, (don't always succeed), but I saw first-hand just how horrible this disease can be.  I really don't look forward to growing old with diabetes.

So yeah, I'm a bit depressed tonight.  I hope that you're feeling happier, but something in my gut says that you're sad too.  I know you are missing Kellie, and my heart goes out to you.  None of these people in my life were my soul mate.  They were family, and close friends, but it's not the same as losing someone you loved more than anything in the world.  

I've been pretending (imagining) this weekend that I'm 20 years older, and Pete is dead and gone.  My mom is dead and gone.  I'm here, all alone.  That is how my future plays out in my mind.  Pete will be 56 in December.  My mom is 65 now.  I fully expect that she will die before Pete, actually.  But, I don't know if I can sit beside Pete in a hospital bed watching him fade into diabetes and get thinner, turn yellow, and watch him deteriorate slowly.  I don't know how Maureen did it, without losing her mind.

Then of course, I wonder if maybe I will die before Pete, and/or my mom.  Maybe I will be the one deteriorating and dying from complications of this nasty disease, and they will have to watch it happen. Either way, it is not a future I am looking forward to.  I really hate diabetes.

By the way, if the name of the chick who won the coffee date with you has been announced, I have missed it.  To my knowledge, nobody knows who won yet….well, except you of course.  Well, anyway, I hope that it goes well, and is enjoyable for you both. You're too cool to offer such a thing.

I love ya Stevie baby.  Have a peaceful and relaxing Christmas, and a fun New Years' Eve with family and friends. I will be in a car all day on the 24th, riding to Rochester NY with Pete, to visit his kids. That is our real anniversary, actually.  We got hitched at the justice of the peace on Xmas Eve. Then we had a full blown "wedding party" the following July for family and friends.  (Bigger tax refund)!  Anyway, we'll be coming home on the 26th, then we're off to DC on the 28th for the weekend.

Just wanted to write to you before we head out for the holidays.  Love you lots.

Bye for now.

-----Rebecca