What started out as a good day hit the skids shortly after I crested the door way. The flash of the answering machine caught my attention. Nothing unusual there. Probably the usual hang up calls from telemarketers. Not today.

“T”...only a select group of old friends know me by that moniker. The speech was slurred. I knew the voice straight off and could tell that he had crawled inside a bottle before making the call. “What the blankity blank do you want?”, a comment I apparently offered to the cat who was the only one present other than myself. I contemplated hitting the erase button but let the machine continue in the background as I was already across the room.

“This is Tom....I know we haven’t talked in a long time...” There was an awkward silence. “Man...I’m dying.” Another long pause. “I got lung cancer and now it’s in my liver. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be on this earth. Doc says I don’t have long. Give me a call.” He didn’t leave a number. He didn’t have to. His parents left him the house when they passed. After all these years, the phone number is still etched in my memory.

The fear in his voice was unmistakable; surprisingly so for a man who never showed the emotion in all the years I’ve known him. Friends well before a razor ever touched my face, we grew up in a tough neighborhood, watching each other’s back while raising our own fair share of Cain. He straightened up, joined the service then went to college after his hitch was up. A few years later he married and went on to have two beautiful daughters. Life had come a long way from the dirty streets of our youth. Along the way, his wife developed progressive MS and was wheelchair bound. Tom became caustic, reverting to alcohol to hide from reality. It was a path he knew all too well. His behavior began to cross the line and the day came where I severed all ties that bind as I could ill afford to have him around my children.

His wife eventually divorced him despite her poor health. She and the kids went to live her parents. Sometime later, her aged parents were forced to commit her to a nursing home as they could no longer provide the necessary care. That was more than 10 years ago and she remains hospitalized to this day. There are fates worse than death...ask her, she’ll tell you. I’ve run into him at only at funerals since then where respect for the deceased over rides all personal tiffs. He paid his respects and I mine only to go our separate ways once again.

Ignorance is bliss yet, sadly, the I no longer have that luxury. I worked in healthcare for far too long not to know the score. Lung cancer is a coin toss depending upon the extent. Once it metastasizes to the liver, it's game over with a projected life span measured in months. He’s picked up the bottle again and continues to smoke. Can’t say as I blame him. The outcome will be the same, just sooner. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing considering the hell which will undoubtedly fill his remaining days. Somehow I doubt he’ll ring in the new year.

Aside from my children, one of the few good things that came from my divorce is learning how to forgive...the forget part is still a work in progress. I know what I must do. I’ve walked the road to the Gates with family and friends before. It won’t be easy. It never is, especially since another closer to me than a sister is also battling lung cancer. I haven’t returned Tom’s call. Not now, not yet. Tomorrow is another day. Easy for me to say when no one has defined a time line for my life. I need to dust off my walking shoes and put my emotions in order first. Tom needs to know that our differences are in the past...and that his old friend will have his back, one last time, as he turns this last corner. I can only hope I am as fortunate when my number is up...