Bad Things happen to good people; they had happened to my good friend, Larry.
Last year, I ran a short story about Larry in my other blog--Taiwan Sabbatical--http://chentaiwansabbatical.blogspot.com/
Larry was my tennis buddy in Wisconsin. We have been playing tennis together for Monday morning tennis drill for several years. This was the drill on Monday morning, 6:00 AM to 7:30 AM and it takes great determination to get up in the very early cold and dark morning in the winter days of Wisconsin. Larry also organized Saturday's men's double league on Saturday morning. I also play in that league for many years.
Larry was in the 40's. A physician himself, he ate right and exercised everyday. He was cheerful and no one had expected something bad would happen to him. One day he had a routine physical examination and asked his doctor to check on one of the strange spots on his skin.
Larry's fate suddenly changed when the doctor told him that the strange spot on his skin was actually a malignant form of skin cancer. A follow-up check revealed even a worse news: the cancer has metastasized to his lymph system. Without treatment, he was expected to live for another 6 months. and there were no effective treatments available guaranteed to cure his illness.
Larry told this bad news in one of our gathering. We promised to be his support behind his struggle against his illness. One of the tennis fellow, Robert, also a physician himself, gave him a big hug. Larry's tears ran out of his eyes. So did we.
Larry terminated his physician pracice to get full attention on his cancer treatment. This was a sign of his professionalism because a person fighting for the illness cannot simply gives 100% attention to his patient. He went into his struggle against his cancer. If he could, he always showed up at our tennis gathering to give us update on his treatment.
Larry was diagnosed in April, 2007. His doctor gave him 6 months to live. When I left US for my sabbatical in Taiwan in July, I saw him and promised him to pray for him. We said to each other, "We will fight the odds."
Larry did. He outlived his doctor's fate prediction by nearly 6 more months.
When I came back to US, the first thing I asked was how Larry was doing. My other tennis friend, Mike, told me that Larry passed away in February.
Bad thing did happen to good people. Larry, we miss you.
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