jesse

I don't know if you have lost someone really close to you, but I've found that with all of these people that I have lost, I ALWAYS go back in my head and say, I wish I had had a chance to have THAT conversation with them. I don't know what that conversation is, necessarily, but it's more the things you see in movies, Like, the last talk before dying thing. So, we race remote control cars every Sunday and it was funny when we first started doing it because I went up to this man and asked him where he got his NASCAR stickers for his car. He answered me, but then left. A few minutes later, he came back and started talking to us, and welcomed us to come sit with him and his "team" in their tent. They were so interested in us and getting us interested in racing, it was really cool...we felt like celebrities. since then, we have developed a friendship with this man named Jesse. Turns out, he is a cancer survivor. The thing that impressed me the most about Jesse was his ability, after JUST meeting us, was the way that he felt comfortable talking about things. We told him that we were married, and he dropped waht he was doing and congratulated us and then proceeded to say that he wasn't just blowing smoke up our a$$, but that he thought that marriage was the most precious thing out there. He almost didn't have words for it, THAT is how much he valued his marriage. Anyway, many weekends went by and we saw Jesse every time...he'd have something new to tell us, usually having nothign to do with racing, but about life. We had always wondered what he did for a living and when Adam asked him, he laughed. He said, "Everyone always thinks that I grow some funky plants or something, but in reality, I sell briefcases". So, last weekend, we went to race and he wasn't there. He showed up midway through the day and was on oxygen and looked terrible. His wife was there for the first time ever and I thought I saw her crying at one point. Anyway, turns out they say that Jesse's cancer came back and just flooded his lungs. They gave him 6 months to live. He said he would be there this past weekend, and he wasn't there for the majority of the day, then he came, on oxygen again, with his wife, and bought this racing car that was all souped up, it was what he had always wanted. I helped him pack it up after everyone was done playing with it and we were just standing there and he says, "I'm getting another opinion, Cherie". I don't feel like I have 6 months...I think I have much more than that"Anyway, that started us talking. He said he was pissed that this doctor told him that he had 6 months, she didn't even know him or his body, what the hell did she know. He told me his wife had fallen apart, he had gone numb and then it hit him. We talked about family and what it meant to have them around. Then he said, "You two are my very good friends, I know that I haven't known you for years, but you are very very good friends" he said, "when I saw you guys sitting over there, I knew that I had to know mroe about you, you had this energy between you and I thought you would think I was just a crazy old fart, but I had to get to know you" I told him that I thought the same thing and then told him what had impressed me so much about our first meeting and his ability to be personal after just meeting us. He teared up and said, "Thank you for that". anyway, then he got up, and then came back and got down near me and said, "If I go and I'm not around, I have written that there are some things that you and Tony need to have. You cannot give them back to who gives them to you, they are yours." I told him that I wasn't getting them anytime soon, so that he needed to enjoy whatever it was for the years to come.