Good memories of a friend of mine #Wishes4Riley

It’s a strange thing when a friend dies. It makes you re-evaluate your life, the way you act and in our case makes us appreciate things. You may have seen Stephanie’s picture floating around social media or on the news about her death. She was an Atlanta mom who went swimming, had symptoms of a summer flu the next day, but that escalated to a loss of all muscle control and then a short three weeks later death.

What is puzzling about this is that the hospital hasn’t been able to figure out why she died or what caused it. They ruled out some of the common theories, but in the end the family might have to settle with never knowing what killed her. In this day and age that sounds like something so antiquated; medicine and the human body, for all that we know and have accomplished can still not offer answers sometime.

Stephanie was a dog friend of mine from before we married other folks and had kids. She had a Dalmatian named Polo who would sometimes play with Wilson, my Golden Retriever. We went to several of his birthday parties. Wilson would always hang on the outskirts of the fence, get to know the area and then beg for food by the gate. Polo, being a Dalmatian and having home field advantage knew how to get around the gate.

She got married, I got married and our lives’ became about our children. That is they way that some friendships go. The sudden and unknown cause of her death has been on my mind all week. Life is really quite fragile. For all of our pomp and circumstance, humans are frail beings that can be felled by something as seemingly simple as a virus that tricks our immune system into attacking itself.

Now her husband Pete has the job of raising their two girls. Stephanie and Pete each had their own business and the past month has put their savings and income into an uncertain spot. He’s started a fund page if you feel moved by her story to donate a couple of dollars.

Steph and the girls would also talk about Taylor Swift. The girls, being girls, love the music of Taylor Swift. A local radio station, B98.5 donated a suite to Pete so that they can enjoy Taylor Swift’s concert and The Bert Show also put in tons of work with Swift’s people to arrange a limo, dinner and pampering when she comes to town next month. You can thank any of the folks involved with that or just pass along some well wishes with the hashtag #Wishes4Riley on twitter.

Life is not fair and bad things that we’ll never be able to explain or rationalize happen to good people. This week a dad was killed by a tent at a fair, another dad blogger was killed by Cancer, my friend was killed by a virus that doctors haven’t been able to identify.

For now I’m thankful, thinking of my friend and wishing the best for her family.