Remembering Jane’s NET cancer
Fifteen days before Christmas in 2010, NET cancer took my wife from me–and from all oner friends and family.
…whatever change will come will come.
To say the two Christmases since have been difficult would be an understatement. This one will be little better. I woke up thinking of her this morning and what we would have been doing today and tomorrow. The thoughts leave a bitter taste that is not softened by time or circumstances–at least not yet.
Changes ahead–and behind
I took myself out for some Chinese food 10 days ago. My fortune cookie contained the usual scrap of paper. “The next month will bring the winds of great change in your life,” it said.
Today, I mourn my own loss.
December of 2010 brought a typhoon of change–all of it negative. I have tried to make something positive out of it–and I think I have done that for others to the extent that was possible. But I am marooned in a time and place that is very hard to deal with some days–and none more so than this week of holidays when all the world seems filled with joy.
And miles to go…
I am not suicidal, just worn out and feeling the loss more deeply today than usual. And that makes me all the more determined to continue the fight against NET cancer–and every other form of cancer that takes people away from this life too soon.
It is too late to save Jane’s life…
We have made real progress this year in our fight against NET cancer. But there is still much more to do. And when I think about all the people I have met whose lives–and spouse’s lives–hang in the balance, it fills me with a sense of mission. It is too late to save Jane’s life, but not too late to save the lives of others.
Rekindling the NET cancer flame
But my heart is not much in that fight today. Today, I mourn my own loss. Tomorrow I think on the mystery of birth and rebirth, on the ongoing Festival of Sun Return, and all the other Yule celebrations that dot our religious faiths at this time of year.
But I am marooned…
And somewhere in the next week, I will rekindle my own fires from the dying fires of the old.
Change will come
The world is always full of change. Sometimes the changes are devastatingly bad. And sometimes they are devastatingly good. I could do with more of the latter this year–and fewer of the former.
I woke up thinking of her this morning…
But whatever change will come will come.
To you and yours, may the holidays bring great and memorable joys. And may the New Year bring us a NET cancer cure.
