David Gill
Life Is Interesting
04/08/09 11:51 Filed in: life, death
Eight years ago a friend and co-worker of mine, David Gill, became suddenly ill. He was living here in Hamamatsu, Japan and teaching here at Four Seasons. One day at a riverside BBQ he told me that his back had been bothering him to the point that he couldn’t sleep at night. He asked me to take him to a doctor. I have a friend who is an orthopedic surgeon, so I took him in.
To make a long story short, his back pain was caused by massive internal swelling that had been going on for so long as to have caused non-reversable damage. He passed away two weeks after his initial complaint.
I was with him every day in the hospital as he couldn’t understand Japanese, and when the severity of his condition was made obvious, I arranged for his family to be with him at the end. Luckily they all arrived in time to see him in his last few hours.
I was cleaning up my e-mail just now when I came across these words that I had sent to his brother for reading at David’s services back in California. I’m glad I came across them.
“Life is interesting.” That is the last thing you taught me David. Not surprisingly, you are right. You were always teaching me something. How to think with a fresh mind, how to see with eyes made new. How to approach a problem as a solution yet to be discovered. How to laugh when I might really want to cry. You taught me these things and more. Without even trying, you taught me that life is indeed a precious thing, something to be cherished and held close to the heart. Something to be shared with others in any and all possible ways. Something that can vanish when we least expect it, but when the end comes, we can meet that end with dignity, as you did David.
Thank you for teaching me to treat each day of life as a new adventure, because, indeed, “Life is interesting.”
To make a long story short, his back pain was caused by massive internal swelling that had been going on for so long as to have caused non-reversable damage. He passed away two weeks after his initial complaint.
I was with him every day in the hospital as he couldn’t understand Japanese, and when the severity of his condition was made obvious, I arranged for his family to be with him at the end. Luckily they all arrived in time to see him in his last few hours.
I was cleaning up my e-mail just now when I came across these words that I had sent to his brother for reading at David’s services back in California. I’m glad I came across them.
“Life is interesting.” That is the last thing you taught me David. Not surprisingly, you are right. You were always teaching me something. How to think with a fresh mind, how to see with eyes made new. How to approach a problem as a solution yet to be discovered. How to laugh when I might really want to cry. You taught me these things and more. Without even trying, you taught me that life is indeed a precious thing, something to be cherished and held close to the heart. Something to be shared with others in any and all possible ways. Something that can vanish when we least expect it, but when the end comes, we can meet that end with dignity, as you did David.
Thank you for teaching me to treat each day of life as a new adventure, because, indeed, “Life is interesting.”