PRE GRIEF

DIALOGUE 1 Thank you again for visiting. Our friend is "Where she is." She is preparing herself to die in a sense. I think. The last several times we've talked she moves a step closer it appears. Today, she was talking about "hope" that the next round of chemo might give her a while longer. I don't exactly know why but she's not ready it appears. And, then of course, who knows! I think that as the cancer progresses, the body shuts down and when and how is way beyond me. Because I am working on Rose's book, using the blog I've kept all along, I seem to be more accepting and kind of pre dealing with my grief. The will to live, the fierce instinct for survival is far more than I could ever understand .


DIALOGUE 2 I sensed the same thing - planning for her death but fighting it tooth and nail - and can only say, "No one knows until they are there." I keep thinking I would simply ask for a morphine drip and let go, welcoming the trip Home...but so few terminally ill people I've known have felt like that. I guess that doesn't happen. That will to live, as you say -- so strong. And I think it's the same whether people have great faith or no faith...they simply don't want to let go of all that they know. Bless her -- she is grace personified and I had the hardest damn time letting go of her as she clung and sobbed when I was leaving. As my mother used to say when she talked about the afterlife: God, you have got some explaining to do about why you let things happen. (And, knowing my mother, God was pretty intimidated when they finally met in heaven!)

With all you have gone through, with Rose and Victoria and countless others, I think steeling yourself for the loss of this dear and wonderful friend of so many years. Pre-dealing is a good word for it. You know it's coming, you cannot stop it and you simply have to prepare for it. Es