my friends - go through so much.
i lost another patient today, one who happened to be my friend. some parts of my life overlap too much. she's the mother of my office manager - the office manager who hired me and has known me since junior high. i can't imagine what it must feel like to know so much about cancer and then have someone in your family be diagnosed, and eventually die of it. i pray i never have to know the feeling.
i don't know what would be worse - knowing nothing at all about what to expect, or knowing everything.and even after years of working in oncology, i would guess there's still so much you can't know.
tonight i am saddened.
glad for her, because she wanted to go. she was ready.
but there is so much a life leaves behind. so many good things. but an absence nonetheless.
sometimes i think that grief is selfish - but there's something inconsolable about losing a friend. a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife. there's something inconsolable about losing any human being. any loss of life.
a loss of life is also a release - no more suffering.
no more waiting. horrible waiting.
release your tears
2 comments:
I'm sitting here trying to think of something smart and encouraging to say but nothing seems quite right. thought it seems trite, even things like making sure her office runs smoothly during this time are a huge help, i'm sure.
i just got back last night from a trip down to DC for Julia's engagment party...but also to say good-bye to her dad, who is literally wasting away right now. Some people have asked me if my job at the hospital has made watching him die different, and it has, in that I now know the degrees of sickness a person can exhibit...and it's awful to see someone i love dearly headed for what I have seen to be the worst and last part of life. I want to be a good friend during the waiting, but then i have a life here and other things to do. it's really hard, and it hurts more than i ever imagined. there is an aspect of all mourning that is selfish. sometimes I can't tell if i'm crying for julia, her dad, her mom, or really just myself and my own memories of her dad, who i can honestly say was close to a father for me at different points. anyway, i hope that i never have to watch something similar happen to my own father, mother, husband, or child but another thing I learned in the hospital is that these things happen everyday, to everyone. it makes life and health precious, maybe, but it also presents some truly frightening possibilites.
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