An open letter to whoever is supposedly in charge of things

Dear Powers that Be-–

You really suck.

See, there was this extremely nice young man named Andy. He was bright, intelligent, witty, funny, caring, giving –- everything that is the absolute best that a young man should be and whole lot better than a whole lot of other people in this world.

He got a cavity in a tooth when he was in his late 20s and, like a whole lot of other young men of that age, blew it off for a while. It got infected and then he couldn’t blow it off any more, so he went to get it taken care of. This is something that most everybody does at some point in their life and, once the hassle of dealing with the infection is over with, should be just a mildly unpleasant memory after a while.

But you, PtB, decided that for this particular young man, this minor lapse in judgement would not end there. Oh, no. You had to make the infection travel to his heart muscle and put him in the hospital. But you wouldn’t even let it rest there. Once the immediate effect was over, this infection kept doing its nasty work over the course of five years or so. And now he’s dead. Because of a fragging cavity in his tooth.

I didn’t know him well. I only chatted with him a couple of times. But he touched me and charmed me like he did every other person that he came in contact with. He went out of his way to do things for people. This week, since he’s been gone, I’ve found out even more of the things he did. When he was just a kid in high school, a friend’s brother died. Andy took it upon himself to help his friend through his grief, to the point of sleeping on the friend’s floor so he could be there if he was needed in the night and starting up a memorial scholarship in honor of the lost brother. Even now, his family has asked that donations be made to this scholarship fund that is in the name of someone else, rather than setting up one in Andy’s memory, because that’s what Andy would want.

PtB, there are a whole lot of people walking around that this world could much more easily do without and who have done much more unwise things than letting a cavity go for a bit too long. I can even give you a list of ones that I know personally, if you'd like. But did you take them instead? No-o-o-o-o. You took Andy’s parents’ only child. We’ll never know the people who won’t be helped now because he’s gone. I know that the world as a whole is a whole lot dimmer place because this light is now gone.

So, PtB, you truly suck.

Signed,
Someone who wishes she could see him one more time