When you sleep beside me I hear your falling heart crashing and I try to pick up the debris
My mom called around 9:15 this evening. I was eating supper at the time. She said she'd call back later. I told her that I could just call her but she insisted that she'd call me. I thought that was peculiar. I usually call her. When she called back I had finished eating. She told me that she had some bad news. I told her I should have figured that was the case, given the fact that she called me.
My sister in law has been having pains in her side for more than a month and they were enough to make Chris want to go to the doctor and get it checked out. That's what she told Mom two weeks ago. Earlier today my brother told Mom that they had found hundreds of tiny polyp-like growths all over her stomach. The nurse there mentioned that she'd never seen so many. They think it may be cancerous. Apparently, they'll know more in two weeks. If it's malignant it doesn't look good. Her kids don't know yet.
Sometimes it's hard to put into words what I'm thinking and feeling, exactly. The phrase, "Well, that's a fine kettle of fish," keeps going through my head, but that is woefully inadequate to sum up news like this. I guess I could also say it sucks, for all the good that this does anyone. I'm feeling kind of anxious and sorry for my brother and his wife. I like Chris. She's a year older than me. She's not "my type" and kind of hard for me to figure sometimes, in certain ways, but she is a real sweetheart who is almost always in a positive frame of mind and she's been really good for my brother. Certainly their marriage has lasted longer than mine. A long time ago I always figured that if either my brother or I were to end up divorced it would be him. Life hands us surprises for our little indulgences in conceits.
My brother is a very different man than I. I guess I can say that I understand him to a certain extent but he has a thought process that is not intuitive to me. This is literally so as he is an ESTJ type. Despite our differing modes of expression and thought, I can say that I understand him well enough to understand that he and Chris are good for one another and that they are very close. I don't know exactly in what way my brother would comes to grips with it if something happened to his wife. I'm hoping that we don't have to find out for years but the news sounds worrisome.
It's kind of gnawing on me. It's certainly given me something much more pressing to think about than my back getting stressed these past couple of days. I want to write about how they don't deserve such a scare, even if it is just a scare, but does anyone really ever deserve cancer? I can't think of many people who would. Of course, I don't believe in Cosmic Justice, deities, or Karma in the first place but I can see why people are tempted to seek some kind of "meaning" out of circumstances like these. Mortality really does just plain suck. I just can't contemplate that concept and accept it as "natural." I just can't consider the topic without thinking, "there's something wrong with this picture."
I'm forty five years old and in all the time I've been alive I really just have a hard time getting a grasp on grief. I'm no good at it. I don't know what to make of it or do with it other than to just endure it. I have many times been someone to lean upon, or to cry upon. I have certainly felt it myself, but the whole emotion baffles me when it comes to helping someone else do something about it. It's not that I have no empathy or have not felt it myself, it's just so personal and I guess I have a pretty uncommon philosophy about how it is handled. I don't know. I am often misunderstood with respect to negative emotions. I suppose that isn't is bad as being misunderstood in my expression of the positives. That would be worse. Anyway, I just have trouble expressing grief in front of all but the people to whom I am closest or perhaps ones with whom I am most comfortable in certain ways. Surprisingly enough, I think my ex wife saw more of my grief than my mother has since I became an adult. My family asked if I would like to say a few words at her funeral when my grandmother died and I declined - I just couldn't do it. Grief is too personal.
I do hope that Chris gets some good news. I have read that cancer, for all that it is a large bogey-man to our civilization, is actually not all that common, but I have seen so many of my relatives and some friends succumb to it. It's not a pretty way to go, not that I know of any in particular. I just wish someone would hurry up and find a reliable cure for that crap. The world would be well rid of it. I suppose I am rambling. I am of a mind to go look for some sleep. Fortunately, I had a spot of insomnia last night so I'm pretty sure I'm tired enough that it isn't going to be an issue this evening.
My sister in law has been having pains in her side for more than a month and they were enough to make Chris want to go to the doctor and get it checked out. That's what she told Mom two weeks ago. Earlier today my brother told Mom that they had found hundreds of tiny polyp-like growths all over her stomach. The nurse there mentioned that she'd never seen so many. They think it may be cancerous. Apparently, they'll know more in two weeks. If it's malignant it doesn't look good. Her kids don't know yet.
Sometimes it's hard to put into words what I'm thinking and feeling, exactly. The phrase, "Well, that's a fine kettle of fish," keeps going through my head, but that is woefully inadequate to sum up news like this. I guess I could also say it sucks, for all the good that this does anyone. I'm feeling kind of anxious and sorry for my brother and his wife. I like Chris. She's a year older than me. She's not "my type" and kind of hard for me to figure sometimes, in certain ways, but she is a real sweetheart who is almost always in a positive frame of mind and she's been really good for my brother. Certainly their marriage has lasted longer than mine. A long time ago I always figured that if either my brother or I were to end up divorced it would be him. Life hands us surprises for our little indulgences in conceits.
My brother is a very different man than I. I guess I can say that I understand him to a certain extent but he has a thought process that is not intuitive to me. This is literally so as he is an ESTJ type. Despite our differing modes of expression and thought, I can say that I understand him well enough to understand that he and Chris are good for one another and that they are very close. I don't know exactly in what way my brother would comes to grips with it if something happened to his wife. I'm hoping that we don't have to find out for years but the news sounds worrisome.
It's kind of gnawing on me. It's certainly given me something much more pressing to think about than my back getting stressed these past couple of days. I want to write about how they don't deserve such a scare, even if it is just a scare, but does anyone really ever deserve cancer? I can't think of many people who would. Of course, I don't believe in Cosmic Justice, deities, or Karma in the first place but I can see why people are tempted to seek some kind of "meaning" out of circumstances like these. Mortality really does just plain suck. I just can't contemplate that concept and accept it as "natural." I just can't consider the topic without thinking, "there's something wrong with this picture."
I'm forty five years old and in all the time I've been alive I really just have a hard time getting a grasp on grief. I'm no good at it. I don't know what to make of it or do with it other than to just endure it. I have many times been someone to lean upon, or to cry upon. I have certainly felt it myself, but the whole emotion baffles me when it comes to helping someone else do something about it. It's not that I have no empathy or have not felt it myself, it's just so personal and I guess I have a pretty uncommon philosophy about how it is handled. I don't know. I am often misunderstood with respect to negative emotions. I suppose that isn't is bad as being misunderstood in my expression of the positives. That would be worse. Anyway, I just have trouble expressing grief in front of all but the people to whom I am closest or perhaps ones with whom I am most comfortable in certain ways. Surprisingly enough, I think my ex wife saw more of my grief than my mother has since I became an adult. My family asked if I would like to say a few words at her funeral when my grandmother died and I declined - I just couldn't do it. Grief is too personal.
I do hope that Chris gets some good news. I have read that cancer, for all that it is a large bogey-man to our civilization, is actually not all that common, but I have seen so many of my relatives and some friends succumb to it. It's not a pretty way to go, not that I know of any in particular. I just wish someone would hurry up and find a reliable cure for that crap. The world would be well rid of it. I suppose I am rambling. I am of a mind to go look for some sleep. Fortunately, I had a spot of insomnia last night so I'm pretty sure I'm tired enough that it isn't going to be an issue this evening.