Fallen friends

It's 10 o clock, and I'm nowhere near tired.
The sun set hours ago, but still the mountains are lit by the storm raging on the other side. Torrential rain to the south. Snow to the north. And a sweeping wind here, with a smell of rain on the air. I sit in a coffee house. Drinking a peaberry coffee from Tanzania. I love African coffee. Birthplace of a worldwide passion. My friend is dead. It hits me from time to time. I sit drinking and reading... listening to Mule Variations by Tom Waits. What a moving album. I so seldom sit and listen to a full work anymore. Very few of the destinations I'm required to visit are more than a half hour away. I don't use my headphones like I did in earlier years. I guess I'm required to participate in my world more now. This is how I want to write. This is how I want to think. I need this time. Time away. I think about Jim. How strong he was. I feel like giving a eulogy, but I know that there's no way to attend his funeral. And even if I could, I don't know that they'd let me talk. After all, I only knew him. Not his family. But all the same I wish I could stress how he died. How it was different than almost everyone else I see die. How he died on his feet. Jim died trying to live. Trying to regain a life that he let go of years before. He knew that Paula would've wanted him to drop his excuses, drop his fears, and make a mad dash for life with everything he had. And so he did. He committed. He went on a 30 day liquid diet, which had to have been one of the hardest things he's ever done. But the big thing that stands out to me is that he died standing up (figuratively of course). When he died, he fell. Like we refer to heroes. I'd never really thought about why heroes fall when they die. But it's because they were standing when they did. They had to be standing. Fighting. Forging. And Jim was. So many people die lying down. In many ways, Paula died lying down. And for that reason, I'm really glad that they died in the order they did. Paula would've been broken, and followed Jim into death. But Jim chose to honor Paula not with submission to death, but fighting for life. The life he knew she wanted him to have. And that is awesome. I have so much respect for the man, and I will miss him terribly. In many ways, I'm just starting to grieve. And in others, I feel as though I've reached a peace with what happened yesterday. It's just that I didn't want to see the story end this way. I wanted to see his new life. His new body. His new reality. But to ever see that, we'll have to watch it happen in our lives. His survivors. I would ask you to choose today to live your life like it matters. That change is not only possible, it's worth dying for. That if someone is willing to risk everything to make life count, it's impossible to simply muttle through another day aimlessly without insulting their memory. I sat in the coffee house reading "The seven habits of highly effective people" which, in my mind, has moved from self help book to recommended reading for anyone wanting to change their life. If you're having trouble even knowing where to start on the road to change, I recommend starting there. If you're a believer in Christ, I recommend the book "I really want to change, so help me God" by James MacDonald. They are both excellently written, and every page has value. Jim wrote something on his blog that really touched me last month. He said "If you are reading this, know that I love you." So on that note, I mirror his sentiments, and want you to know that I feel the same way toward you all. If this were my last post, I would want you to know. I would want to be standing. Fighting. Forging. I would want to "fall" in death. I'd want to be a hero like Jim.