"I got it all"

It's late, hope you don't mind if I ramble on about this and that.

Funny how life can turn at the drop of a hat. There I was, dozing away the last days of the year with not a care in the world. Look out...BAM. My brother, who has been battling cancer for the past year, was suddenly readmitted to the hospital on the very first day of the new year and diagnosed with a large and active new tumor. So, these days I'm sleeping very little and trying to lend whatever support I can to his life and death struggle. There's nobody more courageous than my brother, and I believe that he'll win this fight.

So, it just happened that on one of those sleepless nights I turned on the TV and "Million Dollar Baby" was on. If you've seen the movie you'll probably recognize the title of this post. Maggie, the young fighter, has fractured her spinal cord in a championship bout and is hooked up to a respirator. She wants to die, and begs her manager to unhook her from the machine so she can go with dignity. She's won championships, been in magazines, been cheered by adoring fans all over the world, so what is there to be sorry for? She's still a young woman, dying, but she got it all. It's enough.

We can get it all. Not in decades, years or months. Right now, this moment. Look out the window at the miraculously luminous moon, I mean really feel it down to the very marrow of your bones. It's enough. It has to be. It couldn't be any less! Get it all.

Brother, you taught me this. Fight on...