Well the waiting is over.
Death always seems to visit me in threes and this is the third time in a lifetime it has happened. It begins to get quite spooky, just sitting waiting so to speak for the bad news to come in.
First Toc, then one of my friend’s husband and now my hospice patient. To be fair they were all getting on, I still rather think that any more than the allotted three score and ten are living on borrowed time . But then I rather like the biblical dramatic approach to death, stuff the green non funereal celebration of life routine.
All dead and suddenly, pouff, gone in a minute the last two. Not on one of the better weeks of existence either, Monday 10th was the third anniversary of the boy’s death. I had deliberately not mentioned it to anyone and had accepted a paid speaking engagement at a garden club to divert the mind, How to Overwinter Plants in Whatcom County, which took considerable preparation.
I was rather pleased with myself having kept the whole thing together so to speak and then the really bad news hit this morning. An email from one of my oldest friends in Swansea telling me that her eldest son, 36, a radiologist, with mortgage, wife and child has been diagnosed with cancer, neurfibrosarcoma on his shoulder, not a particularly good survival rate, 30% or so. I have just spent two hours on the phone with her giving her chapter and verse on the non event that is oncological care in S Wales. One of the cleanest living young men you could hope for, a non smoker, slim and modest drinker, the whole thing, absolutely dreadful.
One can mourn the passing of us old farts, but the truth is we have had our time and must make way for another generation, we are lucky to have lasted so long! (In my case especially, I am going to donate my body so they can see what a bottle of red wine and 40 fags a day for 40 years actually does to the body!!!) One delights in the eccentricity of age.
But it is truly devestating to hear of those cut off in their prime with their productive lives to live.
So, not one of the better weeks of existence. I feel rather like ordering my coffin and practising lying in state! On second thoughts, better off up the greenhouse with a bottle of wine and the dogs , three of the greater solaces of life.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Frankly, the older we become, Tina, the more we should acknowledge that we are all a bit past it, and living on borrowed time.
I have been to more funerals this year than weddings, and some who were too young to die, before they had even lived. Supporting the families of same is bloody difficult.
My sympathies for what they are worth, I do remember you posting on MyT about your son, so I can imagine it’s not been the best of times.
Another glass of red? Dogs are good at sympathy; far better than humans, I agree.
A, reckon we should start buying sympathy cards by the score!
I have a supply; working on the stupid assumption that hopefully they won’t be necessary!
But if one doesn’t have any, the worst will happen.
TANJ – “There ain’t no justice”
I remember years ago when I was newly appointed as the executive in charge of a large software department, and only just getting to know my staff. Several people told me of the bright young engineer who was making waves in his section – I read his file, attended a technical meeting at which he was present, and had him marked down as someone who was clearly going to go far. Nice, pleasant chap, newly married.
One morning his wife phoned to say that he wouldn’t be in as he felt a bit off-colour and was off to the doc’s.
Memory tells me it was only three days later (but however long it was, it couldn’t have been more than a week) that we were told he had died, of acute leukaemia. It shook us all to the core.
TANJ – don’t tell me about a god. If there is one, it deserves a life sentence.
Christina – As long as you can still totter off for a ciggy and a glass of red all will be well with the world.
OZ
Life is fragile. If we’re lucky, we’ll live well and long. It’s not a tragedy when someone who has lived a good, interesting life passes on. That is life. That it’s transient makes it beautiful. I’ve seen my share of death, some were old, some were young, some were in the middle. There were people cut down in their youth, sitting by me in class one day and on the coroner’s table the next. There were those who destroyed themselves, brought themselves to ruin. Then, in what bothered me the most, there was the case of a man who died slowly, the victim of a murder that took nearly a decade to come to pass. Even though I don’t really have a talent for living like Christina does, I’m still standing.
I’m so sorry Christina that this succession of sad news has come at such a difficult time for you – your own private anniversary of loss being hard enough to bear without the added burden. We will all have our own insights into ‘difficult to treat diagnosis’ and untimely deaths and our own way of trying to deal with them.
I find it particularly hard when a case I know through work echoes one with which I have had personal experience, and in your case I sense that this latest news falls into this type of category. Your empathy with the mother who has to bear this news and the trials and tribulations of treatment may help her a great deal in the next few months.
I’m lost for words as to what to say. My sympathies to you for having to deal with all this news at this particular time.
Thank you for your contributions, appreciated.
Tina I think we both know how difficult these ‘happenings’ are, they become too frequent as we get older. Latch on to the wine, ciggies, dogs and spousal unit…too late to change things now…remember to avoid all things that hurt…like knees….no kneeling now!!
Christina
I admire your fortitude, always have done, take care of yourself.