Life Comes at you Fast
After a week long trip to Arkansas and Texas last week, we are home. I stayed in Arkansas all week while Cleve drove to Dallas to see his mom and sister for a few days.
I can only describe my visit as bittersweet.
It was so good to be around family again but while I was there, my emotions were all over the charts.
I actually held myself together pretty well until Thursday evening when Fred, Paula and Laura, and Missy came to supper. After they all left, I lost it. To see my brother in this weakened state hurts my heart and although we got a good visit in going back and forth to ACRC (American Cancer Research Center) and then again at Mama’s, I found myself tearing up frequently. You know the feeling … when your throat constricts to the point that you can’t talk.
I’m glad I went and plan to go back more often. I helped Mama around the house with a few things and we talked about a lot of stuff … Daddy, her health, Fred, Missy and Mark and other family members. She got me caught up in my family history book and I found myself wondering what in the world will we do when she’s gone.
She gets around pretty good but is in pain most of the time because of her back and Lord help us … she’s still driving at age 84!!!
It was truly a blessing to be able to spend time with her.
I also said goodbye to an old friend while I was there. She’s in the last stages of cancer and I know I’ll never see her again although we talk on the phone a lot. We were stationed together with our spouses at the Panama Canal Zone 27 years ago. There were lots of tears when I left (mostly from me). I found it odd that she was the one who ended up comforting me. How strange. She knows exactly where she’s going and is not fearful in the least.
Cancer is a nasty, disgusting disease that consumes the body and leaves nothing in the way of dignity or peace. it ravages not only the body but the spirit and soul as well. It plays no favorites. It can invade anyone at anytime.
I don’t know how I’m going to leave this world but if God sees fit for me to go by way of cancer, I only hope that I will weather the storm as courageously and gracefully as the two victims I left behind this past week … my brother and my friend.
Never in a million years would I have every thought that one of my siblings would end up with cancer or that my mom would ever slow down. Life comes at you fast. I think the older I get, the faster it comes.
I’ve lost a lot of loved ones to the dreaded disease but it seems that only now, in the place I am in my life (both spiritually and emotionally), do I understand the overall complexity and harshness of it all and am able to accept it.
God bless the sick and the dying … give them peace and comfort.
