I believe today marks the first day that I have seen the dead body of someone I have known who is my own age. Brad Friesen is someone I have known ever since I moved to North Carolina eleven years ago. He and his wife Tiffany have been very active and faithful members of Church of the Good Shepherd since before I arrived.

About five years ago Brad was diagnosed with brain cancer. We are a very well connected church, medically speaking, and Brad was able to meet with some top neurosurgeons who performed surgery pretty quickly and followed with whatever they felt was the appropriate treatment. Brad and I were not especially close, simply due to not being involved in the same activities, but we all were told that Brad's surgery and treatment had gone quite well. Unfortunately his cancer returned this year and in the past month spread very quickly through his brain. His wife and friends reported that he was quite lucid (and sarcastic) right up to the last few days.

We received the news of the return of Brad's cancer about a month ago, along with a prognosis that he probably had a few months to live. Brad died early on Thursday. One friend I spoke to commented that Brad really was fortunate to have had as much success as he did following the first surgery, since most with his form of cancer die pretty quickly. Brad's wife expressed her amazement to me that Brad had retained so much function and personality through his cancer growth.

Thank the Lord with me for Brad's life and witness. Pray for strength and grace for his surviving wife and three little girls. I know many will tell them about what a terrific man their father had been and that they will see him again at the resurrection of the dead.

38 today. In honor of (and anticipating a bit) my birthday, Joel Garver is now blogging again.

(If he's not "gone Garver" now, what is he???)

Just try to convince me there's something better to watch than game show clips from the 70's:

One of my ESL students asked me last week, "what is meant by the term 'The American People?'"
He pointed out, rightly, that America is composed of people from all over the world. I told him the term didn't really mean anything other than people who live in America. My wife suggested (later) that it often refers to voters. It is certainly a more problematic term than similar terms referring to more homogenous populations such as "Japanese people." I am told that an american living in Japan will never, under any circumstances, be thought of as Japanese. I suppose they think of it as a racial/genetic sort of category.

Real Estate story of the day, since my wife likes old houses.

Decided it was about time for a facelift. I may even add some updated links at some point.

I made some small edit last week which killed my comments, and this was the easiest way to get them back :) I guess old comments are a bit lost now.