Friday, May 21, 2010

Another joins the club

We got word yesterday that a coworker of ours had died of cancer.  She hadn't worked at the office for the last year, at least, once her treatment for cancer overwhelmed her ability to keep working, but while she did give her notice back then, it wasn't like she ever really quit.  It was that cancer effectively fired her; she had no choice.  She fought for 2 1/2 years, but at the end, she was ready to go home.
 
Home.  Now that I believe that there is more to life than this particular life we're living, I am sometimes envious of those, including my A, who have been released from this world and the worries and hardships thereof.  Sometimes I'm so tired, and while I try to make the most of my time here and appreciate those who travel this world with me, I think that I maybe wouldn't mind so much being done.  And in those times when I wonder, if we have a choice about when we leave this world, why A would choose to cross over instead of stay here with me and others who love him, that's usually what I work my way around to.  That life is tiring, and if you have any choice at all, and are given the vision to know how this universe works and that the rest of us will be along soon enough, I think it might be mighty tempting to go ahead.

Management forwarded a beautiful and loving note from her husband, now a new widower.  He was very philosophical about how he would need to take some time to process not only his grief in her fresh absence, but the emotions he hadn't really allowed himself in the last 2 1/2 years.  As I read it, I thought, "Mister, you don't even know what you're in for."  And I was sorry, for my own sake as much as his, that I do.  He must be 60-something; I was just 34 when it happened to me and while I knew the moment I found out A had died that it was going to be really bad, it was 100 times worse, in ways I could've never anticipated.

But then again, I wrote some philosophical posts in those early days, too, about how I was going write my way through the grief, about how one day I'd feel better.  Of course, I had no idea how bad I would feel, or for how long, but I suppose those things were true after all.  And in the shock of bereavement, maybe it's a blessing that the intellect is still able to offer us useful, coherent thoughts like these when the soul is screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"  It can't hear anything beyond its own pain.

I don't know him, but I feel for him nonetheless.  And maybe he will have a better handle on this grieving business than I did; maybe they finished all their business in the time they had.  Maybe he's older and wiser than I, and can bring a different and greater perspective to his life that has changed so drastically in just a single day.  I pray that that's the case; because even if he has all that to start with, this is still going to be one literal hell of a ride.

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