Celebrate Adrian’s Life. Do something good today..

Hmm… It is still so hard to comprehend. When I checked today and saw the post I felt ruined and desolate. Even though I knew this post would come, it still hit like a ton of bricks. I cried all day at work. Adrian Sudbury, the Extraordinaire, passed away today, ending a long battle with Leukemia, but not before making a lasting change in the world.  

This is someone, who although we never met, through our brief emails and exchange of ideas I considered to be a friend. I have elaborated more on this great guy and his plight in other posts and I will do so in the future. I will probably change this post around at a later date as well but today this is what is on my mind. Today was a solemn day.

This line kept repeating up in my head: “What you do takes your further away.”

Courtesy of Mary Magdalene and simply put – what we do in our daily lives, (relationships, work, etc) when we don’t do the right thing, takes us further away. Further from the person we could be and the person we most likely want to be. It leaves us imbalanced and makes us feel insignificant. Usually when we feel this way, we act out – yell at the slow driver, complain about the co-worker who is driving us mad, take our bad day out on our friends & family, etc. We say/think the things we don’t really mean and throughout the day, even if we don’t recognize it, all of those things add up and take us just a little bit further away. Further from the person we want to be, the person, who in actuality, is already within us. Most of us get so caught up in the daily grind that we don’t even remember this. 

If you believe in that concept it only makes sense that the converse must also be true. If what we do has the ability to take us further, than in the same right, there must also be things we do that can bring us closer. Closer to a sense of being, accomplishment & balance. Closer to the type of person we want to be and the changes we want to see in the world. 

This is Adrian, this is where he hangs out – he brings us closer.  Closer to doing the right things for the right reasons. The first gift of bone marrow education he gave us is quite remarkable. Hundreds, if not thousands of people could be saved because of his actions. However the secondary gift he gave, the gift of doing the right thing, is just as immeasurable. Numerous people have commented and thanked him for making them a better person. It’s true – there is something in this blog that you simply can’t deny. The poignancy of his life tribulations made other people lead better lives. Suddenly perfect strangers started thinking twice about the things they did and started going out of their way to do even better things for other strangers. What a beautiful cycle. Thank you Adrian!

 I am one of those people. How could I be so angry at the annoying driver making me late to work when Adrian was dealing with everything in his life and still managing to make the world a better place? I started to think twice and suddenly rushing off in traffic late to work started to become a strange sort of mediation. Thinking about Adrian and the way he chose to live his life, made me live mine better as well. Reading his thoughts gave me a template of understanding. It just made sense and it felt quite tangible, something I could work on. Other people writing similar things on here that convinced me I wasn’t alone in this thought. 

Adrian brought me closer – closer to the person I wanted to be. 

 It seems to me that he brought a lot of people closer. When Adrian’s Army came to fruition it just seemed like the most natural thing – do the right thing and the world will listen. It’s just that simple. 

His light may have been far too short on this earth, but he really could pack a house. Influencing politicians, lobbying for bone marrow transplants, winning awards & making perfect strangers friends – he did a lot! The world was really so lucky to have him. I can only be glad now that he is no longer hurting and I can only hope that our paths will cross again, perhaps in a more permeable way, in another life.

Good luck in Norway Adrian, I figure that is where you’re going now. 

With all the love from the bottom to the top – Bethany