I am very sad today, yesterday I lost a very good friend.

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My friend had been battling cancer for 2 years and yesterday he died. I am so sad he is gone, but glad to know he in in pain no more. We saw him a month ago and he was upbeat and looked good, but I wanted to much to visit him when he had been readmitted to the hospital. But then I think, maybe it is better I saw him when I did. We did a great deal of travelling with him and his wife over the years and he was one of those people that was larger than life. He was also a very big man ( over 400 pounds), and his weight may have been part of the problem, it was diagnosed when it was too late to do much. He had back problems for a very long time and I think they did not look for this disease because it is not common, and attributed his obesity to the cause of the pain. This year our family lost a few people, but I now realize that some deaths have more of a profound effect on us. Some people are just woven so much into our lives so much that when they depart, it changes the course of our life forever. A few cousins died and it will have a minimal effect, some things are changed but not much. But our friend Jim was also was part of a core of friends we have ( and saw quite frequently) and for the most part, I think the group centered around him. We were like a family and when the head of a family dies, sometimes families fall apart. I do not think there is anyone can fill his shoes. I know when he became ill, we went on a cruise withoput him to a place I know he and hs wife very much wanted to go. I was ready to cancel, but he encouraged us to go, so we did. We enjoyed it, but it was not the same without him and his wife. His funeral is tomorrow and instead of sending regular flowers, I am going to try and have the florist make a Hawaiin Lei for him, to take with him into his next life. He loved Hawaii and thought of it as paradise and brought us there 2x, I have so much to than him for, and I think he will look down and smile. He presented us with one ( hawaiian Lei) on our first visit to Hawaii, so I think he needs one for his visit to heaven, also a paradise. Aside from close family members, did you ever have someone in your life whose loss caused a profound change?