You Just Never Know

Sunrise From Home
Originally uploaded by paldusty

Picture:
Sunrise, taken from the front gate just as the clouds were getting kissed by the morning sun.

Next to our house is an empty lot. It has been empty ever since the development was split up back in 1987. Around five years ago it was purchased by a family. They are real nice folks, regular working types in their 30's.
After Jay bought the land he rounded up all of the contractors, settled on the price for the house, well, septic system, the whole thing. He went to the bank to get the financing and finally got it done. It took about four months. All this was done while the housing market was going crazy. People were buying property site unseen. Values were through the roof. Anyway he went back to the contractor and after only four months the price for construction went up by 75 thousand dollars. This was too much for Jay, so he decided to just make payments on the land and had it leveled and a pad built, deciding to hang on to it and when they were ready (They just had a new baby as well) they would build.
That was five years ago and throughout those years Jay has kept the place (Just dirt) looking better than some other people's completed property. Every year he keeps it mowed like a military buzz cut and always kills the weeds at the fence lines, etc. Really keeps it up very well.
We have had an early weed season this year and I knew that it would not be long before I saw Jay drive up in his red toyota truck pulling trailer with his John Deer in it. sure as the sun rises he showed up the other day and mowed the weeds to within an inch of their lives. It took him two days. I didn't get a chance to talk to him then, but the next day he came to do the fence lines with weed killer.
He was doing my side of his property that afternoon, so I waltzed over and said hi. "Hey Jay, what's up?". "OK, considering" he said with hs slow, mellow tone. I asked him what he meant by considering and he told me. About a year ago he was given the word everyone dreads. The doctors told him he had cancer. A rare one that attacks the small intestine. I was set back and then I noticed that he was pail and a little drawn in around his eyes. He had just come from a serious shot of chemo and he was wiped out. I was amazed he was even out there walking around.
During the last year Jay has had an operation that did not get his cancer, taken many rounds of chemotherapy that didn't shrink his tumors and researched and taken alternative steps to kill his poison in his body. That man is 36 years old and has two little kids and even told me that he can't die, not now. Too much stuff to get settled. Jay does have a very strong faith in God and he has put that faith to work.
God bless jay.

You just never know.