long week

monday - wednesday were busy, with work. thursday we had turkey at my sister's house, and friday we drove to brainerd for my cousin's funeral. saturday we lounged about and i performed some retail therapy at my fave thrift store. today we were just hanging around the house when my dad called to let me know that my uncle passed away.

it's not like i did not know this was coming--jed's been bedridden and nearly mute for a long, long time, and he wanted to move on. it still hurts, though. the difference in the wound someone leaves upon your soul is often your own perception of how you were able to interact with that person before they died, and how you were able to say good bye. or at least that is what i've pondered.

when corey died it was sudden--there was no chance to allow time to heal bits and pieces. same with bev--gone, in a blink. with donna there was the gradual understanding that perhaps she might not win her battle--but i clung to the idea that she would, in spite of that.

with jed--with jed it has been a long time coming. he had his first heart attack when he was forty-six--which is always one of my favorite warning tales: once upon a time, jed had a heart attack at home. since he knew what was happening, he popped a beta blocker, and then drove himself to the er, where he was severely chastised for his bad behavior before suffering another heart attack and then actually dying on the table during angioplasty.

not the end.

jed came out of the closet, joined AA, and moved out west. he had a stroke years later and spent a good year rehabbing from that. and then in 2005 he had a series of strokes and has been in the hospital ever since.

and today was finally the end.

jed lived an unconventional life, in comparison with his siblings. dad, my uncles bob and tim, all had families. dan worked and continues to work, a bachelor.

jed was the uncle with matching pillows and a good friend named chuck. he was the one who made a mean beef stew and who partied and sent me emails after he sobered up, talking about feelings and spirituality and past lives. he was different in ways that i cannot describe, since he was always this way--it does not seem terribly unconventional, to my thinking, but to the rest of the world, during my childhood, it was vibrant and so very strange and wonderful.

i know that he was ready to go--i know it, in my bones, that he had come to terms long ago with the demons people face when they battle a long illness--whether it is cancer or some other demon--and i know that when he passed away he was probably thankful.

and in some strange way it is a relief that he is gone, in that he is no longer suffering.

there's been a lot of grief in these past few weeks: my sister losing the baby, my cat wasting away despite treatment, and now, my cousin and uncle passing away. i know that all of these things are natural--that life and death are simply rooms next to one another, doors in a long hallway. trees fall over every day, leaving themselves to nourish the next generation. i know these things, and while i am grateful to whatever it was that finally allowed jed peace, i am still sad that his tale had to end in such a manner.

i will miss you, jed.

cancer and kleenex

a few weeks ago i ran out of my lexapro. i've been struggling with my decision not to refill my perscription, mainly because the withdrawl is horrible: nausea, dizziness, a feeling of complete detachment.

but with this comes a rush of feeling that i didn't realize i was missing.

tonight i almost wish i was back on the lexapro. maybe it wouldn't seem so sad. but it probably still would. my cousin donna passed away tonight after a long battle with cancer. her motto was beleive always -- and she always did, and i guess i did too.

she was this indomitable force, and for some reason in my mind the happy ever after was that she would beat it.

it seemed within reach sometimes -- earlier this year the doctors said if she could make it to fall there was a new drug they wanted to try on her. but fall came and she was not healthy enough so they did not. i suppose you have to keep hoping until you give up hope.

this feels so different from my uncle jed -- he is lingering but has given up already, has surrendered to the idea of death, and looks forward to that release. donna didn't. she wanted to keep going, she wanted to live.

or perhaps at this point she did not, and that was just my hope--that i wanted her to live and keep going.

i know all too well that life isn't fair -- that the world doesn't care whether you live or die, that the earth will continue and time will march onward. it just doesn't seem right to do that without donna's smile and those big blue eyes.

i believed, right until 918 when dad called, that she would triumph, that she would beat cancer at its game. but i don't know why i thought this, because i don't know a lot of success stories when it comes to cancer other than my cousin aaron's new wife, who beat it in childhood.

***

in the oddest of ways i am glad that i can cry again, freely. i'm glad my lips can get all swollen and puffy, and that i can run out of kleenex. the downside to being off that drug is feeling all these things again, more deeply than i have in a few years--but that is the upside, too.

i guess that it is all balances, in the end. the books total out--the ledgers must match--a fact which donna would enjoy, with her accountant background.

cancer brought together donna's entire community. the strange and horrible growth within her created growth without. i guess i just don't like the cost at which such balance is achieved.