Right now I am working through topics surrounding death and life transitions. Growing up I had a neighbor, named Marie, who I had viewed as the matriarch of the neighborhood. She had an especially close tie to my family - a family friend for sure. I never really got to know her, despite commands from my mother for my sister and I to take over a plate of Christmas cookies and talk with her every year.
Three weeks ago I learned that she was in a rehab center with terminal, end stage lung cancer. This shook my to my core. Marie does not really have family in the area - she has a cousin, but no immediate family or children. Most of the people from the old neighborhood who really knew her have died or moved on. I had this image in my mind of her dying alone, and could just not bear the thought.
That evening in group I just lost it - the idea of dying alone _terrified_ me beyond description. Much more than I ever realized.
After group I went to visit Marie for real. I sat with her for two hours that night, and the following two nights, just getting to know her and her story. I'm sorry I didn't get to know her earlier in life - she was quite a character. The next week IH and I went out of town on vacation for seven days. Marie passed away the morning that we returned home. She was a strong woman, and will be missed.
While I was in New Hampshire on vacation I learned that my grandmother (on my mother's side) has been diagnosed with lung cancer with mets to her bones - specifically her pelvis, ribs, shoulder, and back of the head. I had a chance to visit briefly with her in the hopital, and hopefully will be able to get back up there in early October - hopefully before she passes. When I think of grandmothers, I mostly think of her, as she was the predominent grandmother figure in my life. While I knew that she was getting older, she seemed to always keep on trucking without any major health issues. Or that was always my perception.
I've never really, as an adult, had the ability to know someone close to me that was dying in the near future. It is an odd thing - death always seemed like a sudden entering into conciousness, not something that was introduced and lives with you until it's time to go. This has certainly been a reflective time.
I have been hoping that by getting all of that out there that I'd remove some of the mental block that is in my head, keeping me from being present. But that is not the case.
There is something still in this struggle to be present that is missing. I haven't really seen my friends for entirely too long. I have lost them, and that makes me more sad than I realize. I have fallen out of communication through this writing, and that makes me more sad than I realize. Somehow I keep forgetting the things that I need to keep me present, to stay emotionally true.
I'm just a guy who is really having a time of it. I'm really no good at remembering the things that are really important, and really good at doing the things that aren't so important.
I'm struggling. And you know what? I keep forgetting that I'm struggling.
So there it is. My post - the core of it. I miss you guys. I'm really sorry that i'm no good at staying in touch. Even when I stay in touch a lot of the time I don't know how to really be there. But you mean the world to me, and I'm really afraid of losing what little connection I'm able to get.
