My friend Cliff Berning

I have a friend whom I haven't met personally. His name is Clifford Berning. I call him Cliff. We met online more than a decade ago through this yahoo mail forwarder group composed of Expats who were interested in visiting the Philippines, asking questions of it and getting different information of the Filipinos, the food and the country itself.

I can remember vividly how our friendship started and it was at the wrong foot. We argued on a lot of things especially of his impression with the Filipino women. We would constantly exchange conversations on Viber, him being his usual sarcastic self, telling me that Filipino women are dependent and very practical on a wrong point view (which means asking for money, spending it and giving it away even to extended families) and me proving to him that he was wrong and shouldn't generalize his impression of the Filipinas.

Over the years, the exchange of messages brought our friendship to a deeper level. Conversations became less annoying. We were able to tolerate and accept each other's frankness. And, we learned from each other's experiences as well. 

We would talk of almost anything: weather, jobs, money, Jesus, religion, life, family, vacation, economy and whatnots. Yet most often during these conversations, Cliff would bug me with finding him a woman to marry and he would stress over and over of the "list of qualities" that I should look for before introducing him to some woman. To which I always tell him that he has really high standards and it's very difficult to find someone with all the qualities he is looking for. Viber exchanges like these were constant and they kept on coming until the middle of this year. 

About a week ago, I was ready to introduce him to a friend so I created a chat group and started the conversation. However, his reply was really unusual and it made me suspicious that there was something wrong with him. Just a few days ago, I found out that he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. When he told me, he was still in the hospital. 

He was already discharged as of this blog writing but his speech and his movements has already deteriorated. He mentioned the need of a wheelchair for a walker cannot sustain him anymore. After he was discharged, he fell off thrice in one day and had difficulty bringing himself up after falling. He lost a lot of weight already in just a span of a week, from 126 kgs to 95 kgs as of yesterday. 

He is currently in Chang Mai, Thailand and will most likely stay there permanently. His doctor discouraged him of traveling back to the USA because of the risk of a seizure attack. 

I am sharing this to you to raise money for his medical expense. Chemotherapy is the next step for his treatment. He underwent radiation already. 

I am also sharing his Go Fund Me Page. You can click the words underlined and it will direct you to the page itself where you can make a donation. 

Please help me share his page as I am hoping it will be able to reach his family and friends who can help my friend Cliff. Thank you in advance.