Too often, we take life for granted. We believe that we’re invincible—that nothing can or will touch us. Nobody would admit it, but that’s what we believe.

Often times, when “life” hits, we hear people say, “I had no idea _________.” It’s then that the idea of an accident, cancer, seizures, death and even birth, solidifies and we embrace empathy. Our perspective allows us to understand what someone is going through and we reach out knowing exactly what it means to live life in their shoes.

For those of us who are going through these life circumstances, we have a choice to make: how will we respond?

If you’re looking to place blame in answer to the question of “why,” welcome to being a victim.

If you’re looking to the face of hope, you’ll find that “life” has no power over you. It’s fleeting.

Today, my dad is in the hospital fighting a blood infection, recovering from surgery on his neck and fighting to kill the cancer that invades his body. Moreover, my sister is fighting to kill a cancerous brain tumor that earnestly desires to overtake her, while living with the “life” that results from such an intrusion. Furthermore, one year ago, my mom was recovering from a life saving surgery on her neck.

I refuse to give honor to the “life” my family is fighting through and with. It doesn’t deserve the attention. We choose to be thankful for each other and the time we have today.

Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow.

Want to practice your emphathy? Randy Miller of the band, The Myriad, needs your help. Go here (YouTube.com) to learn how you can empathize with this family in deseperate need of a miracle.

Well, it’s been about 28 hours since Charysse’s surgery and I finally got to spend some time with her this afternoon. UCLA Hospital is huge which makes finding your way, post-op, to a room even harder, but Charysse finally got settled into her new diggs around 3pm today. Mom, dad and I arrived around 4pm to say hello. Here’s a picture of her as of today.

For having brain surgery the day before, she’s looking and responding great! The turban around her head is causing a lot of pain, but that’s mainly due to the swelling from the surgery. Obviously, that’s to be expected.

We left around 7pm tonight so Charysse could get some much-needed rest. We’re hoping that by the time we see her tomorrow, she will have been able to catch up on her rest. Speaking of…

The day started at 6am CST and has been full ever since. Landing in LA at 10:30am PST, I met my parents and headed off to pick up Charysse and Marvin to grab some lunch. We ate at Jerry’s Famous Deli next to the Fox Theater where my sister and her husband just happened to catch the premier of Will Farrell’s new movie Semi-Pro the night before. And yes, they got to hobnob with some famous people for a little bit, including Farrell himself. You can read the whole story here. We jetted off from there to check in at our hotel and grabbed some much needed rest.

Now here’s the interesting part. This is my sisters third brain surgery. Based on how the vibe of the family was today, you would think that we all converged in LA to have a great 5 day weekend and, oh yeah, we need to make a pitstop at UCLA and have Charysse’s brain operated on tomorrow. Seriously, it’s a bit crazy. Everybody’s spirits are high, attitudes are great and my family is really making the most out of this experience. To prove it, tonight I booked tickets for Marvin, dad and myself to go to a Nascar race on Saturday night. We even joked that if there’s a next time, we’ll make it an event and offer packages so our friends can join us. “It would be fun!”

While we all certainly understand and are facing the facts, the peace of God is very evident in all of this. Honestly, I have my sister to thank for that. As you will read in her own blog and the comments posted in response, she’s handling this right. It makes it easy for the rest of us to fall in line, even when our own thoughts and emotions want to bunny trail. Thanks sis!

We ended the night on Alivero street in LA. It’s a well-known cobble stonesk street market with authentic mexican food. Conveniently we ate dinner there while gazing at the rare lunar eclipse in the glow of the downtown LA night lights.

A shout-out to my good friend Flynn, of the hip-hop group LA Symphony, who went out of his way to stop by and say hello for a few minutes. We had a great but quick catch-up conversation about his relocated life in LA. Thanks again Flynn!

Regarding tomorrow, Charysse goes in at 7:30 for pre-opp prep. Her surgery is scheduled to start around 8:30-9am PST and last for about 8 hours. Again, your prayers are coveted by our family. If you want more details about her MRI and other medical related details, please visit her blog. I’m leaving those details for her explain.

It’s late and an early morning approaches. I’ll be updating along the way.

Until tomorrow…

Many of you know that for the past four years, my sister has a on-again and off-again relationship with a brain tumor. To-date, she’s had two surgeries to eliminate said tumor and just recently we found out, it’s baaack.

This Wednesday, my family will converge in Los Angeles to celebrate God’s miraculous healing of her tumor and spend the day at Disneyland. However, in the event that God choses to work in other ways, Thursday morning, she’ll be heading in for yet another surgery.

There’s good news and bad news with this new growth. The bad news, the doctor thinks that the tumor is growing around one of her vital blood vessels and is concerned about whether she’ll be able to remove it all. The good news is, the tumors growth is still low-grade and we can fight any tumor that is not retrievable with radiation after the surgery is over. That, in the best wisdom that “man” can bestow, should eliminate and kill this thing once and for all.

I’d like to ask those of you who read this blog and believe that God can do anything, to fast one meal THIS Thursday for my sister. Her surgery will be in the morning, however, the timing of your participation isn’t critical. Regardless, we have the surgery to get through and the all-intensive recovery phase after that. If you can/will participate, please post a reply. I’d like to report to my family the support that they’re getting when we go into surgery. That would be a blessing to us all.

Finally, my sister has started a blog to tell her story. http://charysse.wordpress.com. The family will be posting frequent updates there this week, if you’re interested.