There are days I just want to scream.

This is one of them.

There is no good reason for it. In fact the day started fairly pleasantly. I dreamed–for only the second time since her death that I can remember–about Jane. We were walking down a city street. I had to stop to do something and she continued walking because–as she said–she was moving slowly these days and I would catch up.

I did catch up and we turned down another street. She asked if we could sit down and rest a bit, so we did.

And then I woke up. There was nothing sad about it. It was really quite pleasant. No cause for tears–and I did not shed any. I just lay there in the comfort of it for a while.

I got up, showered, and put myself together for the dentist. Then I sat down for a bit and answered some email and put together the agenda for the Greater Fall River Relay for Life Planning Meeting I have to chair tomorrow night.

But all the while there was this thing in the back of my mind. I had a friend going in for surgery today–cancer surgery. It is the kind of thing that puts an edge on a day–knowing someone is facing that kind of thing. And in the 11 months since Jane’s operation that edge has been even sharper.

I went to the dentist. They filled two teeth with a new kind of filling that is supposed to bind the tooth together, unlike the wedges of the old amalgam things that gradually split soft teeth like mine in half. I marveled at the procedure and how far dentistry has come over the course of my lifetime.

We have come a long way in the treatment of many forms of cancer over that time period as well. But there are too many we just have no good handle on. Part of it is money. In a world of finite resources, choices have to be made. Intellectually, I get that. Emotionally…well, that is something else again.

The weather had turned raw by the time I got back from the dentist. I looked at my outside chores and decided this was not a day to be standing on a ladder with the back blast of a power washer soaking me to the skin. I ate lunch. Thought some more about my friend’s surgery and decided I needed to go to the cemetery to water the flowers I put on Jane’s grave two days ago to mark the tenth month since her passing. I had gone out to the cutting garden on Monday and taken some of every kind of flower she loved that was in bloom. I had stood by her grave after I arranged them and wept.

I pulled the watering can out of the trunk when I got there and filled it with water. The flowers had, indeed, been thirsty. After I filled the vase, I stood there asking the why questions I always ask on gray days. Even on sunny days the answers are never satisfactory. I cried again, then got in the car and came home. I tried to watch a comedy film, but the jokes fell flat.

I had dinner, did my dishes, and took the short walk down the hall. I composed a letter for the Divisional President of the American Cancer Society and sent it off to one of Jane’s doctors who has promised to add a couple of paragraphs. I answered some more e-mails and thought again about my friend. I will hear nothing before tomorrow. I will hope the news then will be good.

But the unfairness of it all grinds at me. My patience is worn to onion skin.

Why this one and not that one? Why this good one while that one who beats his kids lives to a ripe old age?

The Buddhist in me chides, “Life is suffering.”

I scowl back like an angry child. Then I soften. Life is life.

I will sleep tonight. Tomorrow, I will get up. I will plan the day ahead. I will make slow progress on the work we shared–and on the new work this new life requires.

There are cancers out there–literal and figurative–that need to be fought and brought to bay. The battles may make me scream some days but who can really tell the difference between a scream and a war cry?