Mark Blevis

I spent the weekend reconnecting with my brothers Bob, Jamie and David.  While they are in fact real brothers, I’m the virtual brother of the group.  Twenty years ago when I was in a band with Bob and Jamie, I spent enough time at their house that I was given my own key, joined their family for many meals and earned the title of “the fourth brother”.  Beyond band practices, the four of us spent a lot of time together playing basketball, going to the movies with our dates of the time, etc…

Two months ago, David was diagnosed with stage four terminal lung cancer.  That was more than a bit of a shock.  This past weekend, I went to Oshawa with Bob and Jamie to visit Dave in the hospital and do some work around Dave’s house.  It was the first time in maybe fourteen years that the four of us were in the same room at the same time.  It was bittersweet, as you can imagine.

In addition to Dave, another dear friend was recently diagnosed with cancer.  This is not the kind of summer we ever anticipated.

We are very committed to helping our friends out as much as possible.  That means making adjustments in our plans so we can be available for routine and even emergency help.  As such, I’ve decided to cancel my plans to participate in PodCamp Montreal, PodCamp Philly and the annual Kidlit Conference.  In some ways this was a difficult decision to make.  In even more ways, it was a quick and easy decision to make.

On a related note, Bob has plans to pull together a multi-band cancer fundraising concert for September.  If that happens, he and I will perform together on stage for the first time in about twelve years.  I’ll keep you posted.