Thankfully he came out of surgery fine, but not without its share of complications. The operation took longer than expected as the infection was worse than previously thought. So the family sat out in the waiting room, trying to calm their nerves with mixed results. It of course, got me to thinking.
My brother in-law is a typical sort; tall, handsome, no nonsense sort of gent who likes guns, beer, and women who don't wear much in the way of clothes. Beloved by his family and friends, he's a man who's quick to laugh, even at his own jokes, and doesn't take himself seriously. The family adores him, and to think about the grief they would endure had they lost him was almost too much to think about.
Here is a man, healthy and strong who all of a sudden is at the mercy of an unneeded organ and could've just made a good woman a widow and my daughter would not know what's it's like to grow up loving her uncle Russ. Life would've been emptier without him in the family I married into, and the thought of his passing terrified me. I've never been extremely close to my brother in-law, and to see him die before I had the time with him so many others had was a depressing thought. I'd miss out on what they all see in him, things my daughter should grow up seeing.
But thankfully after a few days of pondering the fragility of life, he's ok sitting in recovery doing about as well as could be expected. The family rallied around their fortunate son, and he will continue to touch our lives, thankfully. You never realize how much someone means to you and your family, or how much you mean to them, even if all you have to do is just exist.
"Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it." -W. Somerset Maugham
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