Denise and I were winding down a week of hiking up on Mount Washington as well as spending precious times with our grandkids and their parents when I got a shocking call from my brother Brian from a hospital bed at St. Paul's in Vancouver, "It's bad news, they've seen a mass as well as spots on my lungs, liver and near my heart, it's stage four metasticized cancer with an undetermined source.  Hopefully we can find some sort of plan. This is where we are now."

I had to pull off the road as I expressed to him my shock and horror at what he had just heard from the doctors.  At the same time, it made sense of the intense pain he had been suffering from for months, pain that different specialists had dismissed.  In their defense, the CT scans didn't seem to show anything, but still, the level of pain he was experiencing might have elicited at least more empathetic curiosity in search of a cause; now an MRI had revealed the news.

Still, we hoped for a diagnostic plan.  Most of us know of stage four cancer patients who survive for years after such a diagnosis.  But no plan was forthcoming; the cancer had spread too far. Brian's kidneys shut down, and there was nothing left to do but transfer him to his beloved studio in Abbotsford and make him as comfortable as possible as friends and family took turns having their final conversations.

I was able to witness the turn from "praying for a miracle" to "the end is near, and I accept it."  His last two days were a combination of endurance, gratefulness, and an outpouring of love towards him and from him.  It was a privilege to be there with him.

Many of you who have suffered the loss of a partner or close sibling will know the feelings of grief that come in waves as memories hit and as realizations of what will now not happen or come to pass dawn.  I am so grateful to be part of a community in which we can share these joys and sorrows together and in which we can encourage each other in our faith in a God of love who has made a way for us, even in the midst of suffering and death.

I will return to Abbotsford Sunday, August 2nd for a late-afternoon Memorial for family and friends.  I'm sure we'll share stories and laugh, but it will be painful as well.  Thank you for your prayers and kind words; they mean so much to Denise and me.  At some point, there will be a Memorial Concert with the causes Brian supported as the beneficiaries.