Yesterday I read an article online about a black hole that swallowed a star. I was drawn in by the magnitude of that thought. How can a sun be swallowed up? Why would nature allow something so bright and important to be extinguished before its time? It is, of course, the relentlessness of nature that would allow such a thing to take place. The star, following the path it had for millenia, ran into an immovable force, an object that by all definition is pure nothingness, yet weighed millions of times more than the star. In 138 days, a star that had shone brightly in the nothingness of space for thousands of years was taken away from us. There is one less star shining in our night sky, one less beacon sending us signals from places unknown, one less point in an unknown constellation.
While I was reading this article, my family was losing one of its brightest stars to the black hole that is cancer. My cousin, Linda, lost her battle with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia today, taking part of all of us with her in the process. Linda would not want us to dwell on her death, but to celebrate her life by remembering that bright spot in the sky, allowing it to burn in our memories, and moving forward with our lives.
When I started this blog last year, Linda was the first follower that I had. I was so happy, I came home and told Erin, "I have my first follower." It is that support that I will pay forward, that character that I hope I can display in my own life. I am going to start now and urge everyone reading this to do what they can. Every year, 10,000 patients need a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor, but only half of those patients recieve one. Please go to http://marrow.org/ to learn about bone marrow donation and sign up to be a donor or make a monetary contribution. I know I will.
