I recently received some very bad news concerning the progress of my cancer.
Things aren't dire yet, just that it's spreading and that I think that it has become time to start collecting money for my family for when the end turns more tragic.
Money for my cremation, any burial expenses (yes, I do have a plot) and any other multitude of expenses that they will likely face when I'm gone.
I don't have life insurance, you don't think of those things when you're fairly young and in good health. And, of course, insurance companies won't sell life insurance to anyone who has cancer (not even someone who survived or was "cured" of cancer).
Friends in the music community have offered to throw benefits for me, but I have the experience to know that benefits tend to cost more money than they raise. The only time that they really raise donations is when the hat/jar/whatever comes around and is stuck in their face. Then they have the choice to drop something in or look like a jerk. And yet even then it's very iffy that anyone will toss anything substantial into the pot, if anything at all.
I've put this off because the chemo had worked so well (despite me dropping from 200 lbs to 160 lbs.). It was denial and I thought I had a few more years. But even if I have 6 more months or even, miraculously, another year it's something that I have to accept and think about now. The costs of my family.
I've lived a year, that's average for someone with lung cancer. A year and half is the typical life expectancy of someone who was young and healthy when they first discovered it (and I know that I've had it long before than it was discovered).
Please have the decency to consider my family and the mountain of expenses that they will have to face ahead.
As I said, I don't know how much longer I'll be around. I won't be dead tomorrow, but it's not too soon to take this seriously and start passing the hat.
The goal may seem extremely high and I don't expect it to be reached (not even close), my hope is that the goal will at least be half reached. Someday my family will want a headstone for me as well. Those don't come cheap. Maybe I can raise enough for my cremation, burial expenses, impending bills and then a good start for a headstone.
I know that I don't have the richest in friends, in fact most of you are as poor as me and my family are. But I do have the best of friends.
I want to thank anyone who can give, even if it's just  a little bit.
Thanks.