09.29.04

So I haven�t written.

Mainly because the most exciting thing that I�ve done in the past week or so was attend the baby shower of my cousin. And if a non-alcoholic baby shower held by about 30 middle-aged women that I don�t know is the highlight, well, you can understand the not writing thing. Even worse, they put me in charge of handing over gifts, writing down what they were and by whom. Big mistake. By gift number 23 I was practically unwrapping them myself. �ANOTHER set of onsies. Aw. How cute. From�uh�lady in the pink shirt. Okay! Next gift! Just rip the damn bow, you�re not going to keep it!�

I was the Baby Shower Nazi.

But Pregnant Cousin was extremely cute. She�s due next month and it made me really excited to get as far along as she is.

:::

On the extremely sad side, it has been a tough week or so because my uncle, Pregnant Cousin�s (let�s just go with PC) father who has been fighting cancer for the past year or so has taken a turn for the worse. To be painfully honest about it, he is dying. He is only 56. The doctors, while trying another round of chemo, have admitted that there is nothing more they can do for him. The chemo will hopefully buy him a few extra weeks, but, barring a miracle, it doesn�t look good.

This has bee hard for me on so many levels. First of all, I am extremely close to my cousin. It breaks my heart to think about what she must be going through. Pregnant with her first, she is terrified that her father might never even get to meet her child. And this following on the heels of my own father�s diagnosis (I have the official term; it is a non-malignant meningioma) and my subsequent fears of losing him, I can only imagine the disbelief and pain she is feeling.

In addition, this is my mother�s older brother. My mother is falling apart. He kind of took the place of her parents after they passed away, and now it is like she is losing her support system all over again. And my mother really could use all the support she can get.

And then I try to imagine how my uncle is feeling. Is he afraid to die? Knowing the man of faith that he is, I wouldn�t think so. And the one thing about a monster like cancer is that usually the suffering in the end is so great, death is a release to look forward to. A cruel type of mercy. It is a hateful thing, cancer.

But I would imagine, again knowing the kind of man that he is, that his greatest concern lies with his family that has to watch him suffer. I know that his heart breaks for them. I know that he is needlessly sorry.

Ah. I am crying now. Just thinking about how this will affect their lives. Knowing that even after the initial ache and sorrow that there will be countless times over the years when my cousin will think to herself, �I wish he were here� when he won�t be.

It is so sad.

At this point, do you dare hope for a miracle? Do you dare even pray for one? I suppose you do dare. You dare up to the very end. You have to.

You have no other choice.

before ~ after