I’ve been spending more time at the gym lately. I apparently discovered the perfect recipe for midsection expansion - turn 40, spend hours each day studying for a Master’s degree and develop a healthy appreciation for beer. The only cure is exercise, and that means getting my rear out the door.

While I’ve lost a few inches on my midsection, I have gained a number of new acquaintances at the gym. Not an equal swap, but the faces and stories are welcome to a writer interested in good dialogue.

But tonight was different. I ran into a guy I’ve come to know. Let’s call him Mark … it’s not his real name, but that doesn’t matter. Mark, an average looking middle-aged guy, recently confided in me that he was no longer in the closet. Whatever. Didn’t matter to me, but it was apparently important that he told someone. I only share this point to suggest that Mark was using the relative anonymity of the gym to get something off his chest. Like I said, whatever. Mark’s a funny guy and his business is his business.

Back to tonight’s story. Mark was getting dressed but he looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“Hey, not much of a workout tonight,” I said. Mark shook his head, looking as if he was in pain.

“I won’t be working out again for awhile,” he said. I realized a look of shock on Mark’s face. I wondered if he had pulled a muscle.

After several minutes of talking to Mark, I learned that his doctor has diagnosed some kind of illness - sounded like a form of cancer - and this his prognosis was not good. I think this idea of friendly anonymity was again at play. After all, I do not know this guy and here he is in a locker room telling me about his kids and how he does not want to live if he cannot be active.

I awkwardly shifted from one foot to the other, eying the clock and knowing my workout class started any minute.

Mark’s phone rang and that was my escape. I was heading out. But here’s the part that really breaks my heart. I stopped, ignoring the class and all of the damn deadlines that seem to take me from one moment to the next. I needed to tell Mark what was on my mind. We are anonymous acquaintances, after all.

“Hey, Mark, I’m a guy who has a lot of faith …” I started. But before I could finish the sentence, Mark cut me off. ”I don’t,” he answered.

“Well, I’m going to be praying for you,” I continued.

“It won’t work.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to do it anyway,” I insisted.

“OK, man, whatever,” Mark said, promising to let me know how things are going.

Like I said, I don’t really even know this guy. But I know hopelessness when I see it. I know that without some sense of something beyond this, what’s the point? We have to believe there is some kind of purpose to all this, right?

One more thing I know is that when we pray, we rarely hear that George Burns voice from the cheesy 70s movie talking back. OK, some of you might, but I never have. Despite the silence I’m going to hold up Mark - still not his real name - in prayer, along with my other friends battling cancer too.

I don’t know what else to do. My graduate studies are in communication, not oncology.