What Would You Rather Do on Your Birthday?

     I had a pretty low key one planned. Maybe sell a few books, if I was lucky, then go to a local pub to watch the Patriots play their first post season game. And I still intend on doing that. But now I've something more important to do because a family is about to be hit with a calamity that few of us who haven't suffered through one like this can fully imagine.
     I just received a letter crossposted to both my email clients from a dear friend of mine in Washington state who's now hopping on a jet to North Carolina. Since she knows this gentleman and the family better than I do, I'll let her do the talking straight from her blog, Experiential Pagan, and I'll have to trust she won't mind the copyright infringement:

     As I said on my more (ever slightly) active blogs at Herlander Walking and Steel Kachinas….I have a grim week ahead. I am even being forced into flying for the first time in over a decade. A veteran as dear to me as my sons, Lincoln Marston, is dying at Duke University Medical School. Just after New Year’s he suffered the rupture of an aneurysm in his brain and almost a dozen catastrophic strokes. His wife, Amy, also an Air Force veteran who served with him in Afghanistan has no income whatsoever at this time. They have two young children who are just becoming terrified they will have to say farewell to their father.
     It is time to support the troops, any of you who call me friend! There is a site to help raise money….for everything from medical bills to funeral costs. I take flight this weekend, with my son who considered Lincoln another brother. We have packed our black suits and robbed our savings accounts. The miserable woman who can soon claim the title widow can’t even access Lincoln’s bank account. Please throw a few dollars into the pot and pass the word to all and sundry.

     She also said in her email that they're cutting off life support on the 18th, if he makes it that far.
     I don't expect you to know this young couple and their family but if you aren't moved by something like this then you have no right to lay claim to the title of human. My heart goes out to them because they were until recently what appeared to be a happy family. My heart goes out to them because they're former Air Force and during our younger days my old man and I both were also in the Air Force. And lastly, my heart goes out to them because they both served in Afghanistan, a place we never should have invaded and occupied. It seems the only good part about being stationed there was that's where Lincoln and Amy met.
     And even though Mrs. JP and I are hurting financially, we're not facing adversity nearly this calamitous or gut-wrenching so even I'd contributed to the Go Fund Me fund. I implore you to please do the same. Money obviously won't replace their husband and father or heal their wounds but regardless of a death in the family, the wolves are never very far from the door and don't care about your loss.
     So please give whatever you can to this poor family because they're about to be in more need than anyone in this country should ever have to stare down.