Unless you have ever gone though this, unless you have ever lost someone unexpectedly, you have no idea what it’s like to go through almost every day wondering if everything you love around you will be taken away in some kind of similar fashion.  It has been months of this now.  I spun tonight and ended with crying hysterically and screaming and borderline throwing up.  There are bouts of this, not as frequently as before but they still happen, especially in these times where I am wringing myself out physically and emotionally over something as unrelated as spinning on a bike.  I sit there with my head in my hands, between dry heaving, wondering why I invested so much time in myself over the past years, riding and racing bikes, wholly unaware of the idea that one day someone I deeply care about might simply not be there, no chance to say what needed to be said and left only to hope that it was understood in that last time you ever said goodbye to each other.  It is so painful to live through this, and then layer on top of it the empathy I feel for everyone else going through what that I am.  It’s pain worse than anything and I can’t do anything to make it easier, I can’t play a song or find some anthem that brands this situation with some new, higher purpose right now; no great awakening or moment of clarity that somehow all of a sudden puts it all in a positive light and makes it a reason to be happy and optimistic instead of a reason to live my life in fear of loss.  But what it has done for me is given me tremendous perspective on how fragile our lives can be; how nothing is guaranteed to run according to the script you maintain in your head; how I care about all of you who take the time to interact with me, here or personally; no acquaintances, it is only family and friends, and if you are not one, to me, you are the other.  So thank you for being here.