Aneurysm: (n.) an excessive localized enlargement of an artery caused by the weakening of the artery wall.

I sat for a moment, shaking my head in disbelief, unwilling to receive the information that had been imparted to me.

A friend of mine, twenty-five years of age, had suddenly died.

He had a brain aneurysm.

Rushing to the hospital and arriving on the scene, I found myself bouncing from one friend to another in search of meaning–some sort of explanation of how this could possibly have happened to such a youthful, energetic and healthy individual.

Nobody knew.

So I decided to ask the doctor. “How can he be dead? He was so healthy.”

The doctor looked me in the eyes and said, “It was a done deal when he was born.”

He went on to kindly explain that the weakness in my friend’s blood vessel was there at birth and was on a ticking clock of twenty-five years. And when the bell rang, his school was out.

I had so many questions. Were there any signs? How about symptoms?

But the doctor gently nudged me into the path of reason.

“We’re all going to die, and we really can’t change the date forward too much. If we don’t take care of ourselves we can hasten it. But sometimes, there’s one little blood vessel that doesn’t understand the value of jogging and eating broccoli, and just gives up too soon.”

How fearfully and wonderfully we are made, said the Psalmist.

Often we linger over the wonderful nature of the human mechanism.

But let us not ever forget how frighteningly fragile it can be also. 

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix