Last week my group of friends and I lost another special person from our ranks. Her name was Jill Capps and she was not only the kindest member of our group, but she was also one of the most compassionate. Jill left behind a seven year old boy, Cameron and a thirteen year old girl, Kara. She was only thirty-three when she was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer and it took less than five years for this relentless disease to take her life.
Hope has a way of masking the inevitable and each of us are asking the ‘why’ questions and repeating that we “can’t believe she’s gone”. Perhaps it is our age, still young enough to feel some sense of indestructibility, but old enough to know our time is certainly limited. No matter the cause, our combined sense of grief and loss hangs in the air like a chemical spill. Personally, I have told my best friend Michelle, that I love her more often in the past week than our entire twenty-something years together. The death of yet another friend has place another weak spot on our hearts, but it has again strengthened our adoration for those friends who are still alive and the life we can all still have.
Even though we cannot know when our time together will end, we can know that it will indeed end and it is our responsibility to ourselves and each other to enjoy each moment that we are given. Jill was a special woman with a keen sense of humor and a hopeful heart and we, as those lucky enough to have known her, have a responsibility to not only share her brand of kindness with those around us, but also to remain hopeful about our own lives even when faced with tremendous obstacles. Every day is a gift, live it to the fullest.
