As I shuffle through my house this morning thoughts keep creeping into my mind, bits and pieces of things I want to say, and do, so I feel compelled to put them to paper.  Karma does not exist, it can’t.

I have a friend… Friend has become a term that we use for just about anybody that we know these days, so I want to find a new word for the close ones.  Let me give you an example of how selfless this man is:

Last year, while leaving the Cleveland Browns at Buffalo Bills football game, Kristen had fallen down and subsequently broke her leg, It was still a rather long walk to the car and Kristen couldn’t even stand on her leg, let alone walk to our vehicle.  So I called our friend.

If you’ve ever been to a Bills game, you know that the restaurants around stadium are jam packed before, during and after the Bills games, these restaurants need as many people on staff as they can get just to make sure all customers are taken care of as quickly as they can be.

So my friend is the owner of one of these restaurants.  I called him despite knowing this, and despite the fact that I knew that he had other responsibilities at his packed restaurant.  But I also knew that he had a 4 wheeler parked outside his restaurant.  I knew that because I saw it there when I parked the car earlier that morning.  There was no answer at his cell phone so I called the restaurant and asked for him. 

“Is there any way you can send someone on your 4 wheeler to come get Kristen and give her a ride back to our car”.

“Yeah no problem, see you soon”.

I gave him the details on where we were and we waited.  Then we waited, a little more.

The sheriffs wouldn’t let the 4 wheeler through the traffic to get to us.  How did I find out?  Phone call?  No,  My friend, left his busy restaurant on the 4 wheeler only to be turned around by sheriffs, so he had to take it back to the restaurant.  Then him and his daughter proceeded to run, yes run to the location that I had given him earlier. 

Out of breath and sweat dripping off of his forehead he approaches us and tells us about the ATV and how they couldn’t get it through the traffic, but he came to help carry her to our car.  The man left his busy restaurant to help carry another human being a half mile to our car.

Friend isn’t nearly the appropriate term for a person who would drop everything to help you out when you need it, I haven’t found the term that more adequately describes him but for now I will call him my family.

This guy is full of selfless acts. He is so humble and doesn’t ever put himself before his family, and friends.

So how do I know Karma does not exist?

A few months ago this family member returns home after working all day to see his daughter getting her hair done for prom, then everything goes dark and he wakes up in a hospital bed staring up at the lights.  What the hell happened?

He had a seizure, but what caused it?  The doctors ran some tests and noticed a small lesion on his brain.  He was released from the hospital and went back to running his restaurant.  In fact, during this time, he helped another friend of mine plan a tailgate for the Rolling Stones concert in his parking lot.

Today I get a phone call from him.

As it turns out, the “lesion” on his brain is cancer, and it’s aggressive.  They were able to remove most of it, but to remove all of it would have been dangerous because of where it is in his brain.

This guy, who gives more than he ever gets, and would die for his friends, might actually be dying.  No sir, karma does not exist.  It’s just a word, that’s all it is.

My family member starts his treatments tonight and we all look forward to him beating this disgusting  “hell on earth” neoplasm.

If Karma were real, cancer would be reserved for rapists and pedophiles.  If karma were real, selfless, good to the core human beings would never get it.  Ever!

He will not go down without a fight and he is confident that he will overcome this disease, and if anyone deserves to, it’s him.

For now, I am honored to call this man “family”, we are honored to be in his close knit circle, and we will rally around him in positivity until this nasty malignant tumor is gone.

Don't take any moment for granted, your last may be closer than you think.