This morning, Carol Gulley broke the news on her blog that I feared but dreaded hearing: Ed has an inoperable brain tumor – actually six or more in his brain – and he has declined chemo, surgery or therapy.

The doctors say his peripheral vision is already affected by the tumors and he wants to have some time to see a bit of the world, for the first time in 40 years, and while he is able.

Ed says he doesn’t want to feel any sicker than he does.

“I am writing to update you on moving forward,” wrote Carol on her blog today. “Travel is first on Ed’s list and as soon as we can pull things together he is heading to see the blue Montana skies…then off to whatever destination he likes.”

The family is already gathering to run the farm and take it over and keep it working.

Ed wants to set out to see a rodeo in Montana, visit friends in Amish Country, and he is determined to go to Maryland to buy and bring home a large wooden gorilla, so he can sit outside of the farm-house and shout “I’m still here!”

Carol is a student in my writing workshop. As a life-long dairy farmer, she is new to writing. In a few weeks she put up a blog, even thought she had never seen one. It is very successful. So many people look at me like I’m mad when I talk about the power of a blog. Ed and Carol got it right away.

Carol takes videos and photos and is working with Ed on a book on a book about the four seasons of Bejosh Farm.

She and Ed plan to blog from the road. Carol is a genuine writer, the real thing. She is brave, authentic and articulate, even under the worst kind of pressure and sorrow.

I am beginning to find my center in this, I am beginning to figure out how to be a friend in this time. I’m already working with Ed’s daughter Maggie to find voice recognition software to go into the new laptop they are buying for their trip. I’ve been trawling online reading through catalogues and reviews and have 100 pages of printouts.

Ed is already having vision programs and may have difficult manipulating a keyboard. I’m seeking voice recognition software – they call it assistance technology – that will make it easier for him to control his new laptop with his voice and writing without having to type on a keyboard.

Ed finds our farm calming, he and Carol are coming over today. The farm and our home are always open to them, it feels good to help them in that way. I hope he is here often. Every time we meet, Ed thanks Maria for guiding him on his own artistic journey.

For me, the road to clarity and peace comes from figuring out how to be helpful, rather than wring my hands. Ed and Carol are farm-strong and tough, they will handle whatever they have to handle. Like me, they respect life and accept it. The farm is a greater teacher of acceptance. On a small family farm, you accept life or perish.

But even pig-headed Ed, the man of the iron will,  knows he will need some help.

Of all the people I have ever worked with or talked with, Ed and Carol grasp the power of the blog to find their voices and speak to the world and use creativity – writing and images – to tell their story.

They can and will speak for themselves. They have embraced new technologies that terrify even much younger people, they are determined to tell their story to the world.

For me, adjusting to the inevitable loss of one of the best friends I am likely to have is hard. It is hard to see the rationale for that, until you understand that fate doesn’t need one.  I will get there.

Like death itself, this is sad, but not only sad. Ed will treasure this time and opportunity. In recent years, managing the grind of a dairy farm has been wearing him down. Ed has had a good and full life, he is grateful for it.

In the past  few years,  Ed has found himself and so has Carol.

He has grasped his own  potential and unleashed his own creativity.

Most of his working life has been about his farm, the land, and animals. To that he has added writing and art, he has unleashed the creative spirits yearning to be free. Ed’s life never permitted him to stretch his mind, those barriers are gone now.

He is free. I am eager to see what he creates.

If you come to our Open House this Fall, you will see the fruit of his creation, his evocative and authentic art sculptures. They will be all over our lawn.

Ed is a larger than life person, people like that live on and on in many ways. I expect Ed will be around a good while, he is stubborn and mean, but he and I will talk openly about death, we won’t dwell on it or run from it. Illness will not define him, or be the legacy of his life. And fear will not overwhelm him.

We will have some fun, shed some tears, tell some lies. Friends sometimes take each other for granted, that will not happen here.

When Henry David Thoreau wrote about the death of a friend,  he said when that happens, the fates have bestowed upon us the task of a double life, we must go forward to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own life, and to the world.

Ed is one of those very rare birds with the courage to change and to grow, and to fulfill the promise of his great mind and creative spirit, to the end and beyond.

Maria and I have devoted our lives to doing the same, and if I ever falter or stumble, I will hear a loud and strong voice in my head, thundering, “get off your ass, no moping!”