(no subject)

Just got an email from my mom - my uncle Rick will be starting chemo therapy again this week, his cancer is back in the lungs and someplace else in the abdomen. The doctors have something they can try which wasn't available the first time around, but we've known from the start that this type of cancer is very aggressive and very hard to treat. All parties concerned have been rather amazed at how well he'd been doing. Still, he's only in his mid-40's, and my permanent image of him is the crazy young uncle who was always willing to play with us (he was the only grown-up willing to try the stilts that Andrea got for her birthday one year, and of course he was the best at it :)).

I don't like the fact that so many of my relatives could die while I'm over here. It's hard to feel a part of the family when they're all so far away.