You Think You Have Time

My friend Jane was sent home to die. The cancer, defeated in her tired and battered body, had spread to her brain and there was no turning it back.

She fought for months, like a tigress protecting her young. There was always faith and optimism and a smile, a determination to save her own life. She did everything that was asked of her from nutrition to supplements to chemotherapy to radiation. She put up with all the cruel, ugly and painful side effects of treatment. She kept going, sometimes on nothing but the force of faith and positive thoughts. She put up with not being able to sleep or eat or walk. There were times when she didn't have the energy to speak. She fell in love with her doctor, trusted him and spoke his name with love and gratitude. He did everything there was to be done. It wasn't enough. Neither ever said as much, but I think they both knew. Jane died early this morning.

And then there's my friend, Jeff, brought down by a major stroke. It destroyed the entire left side of his brain and his pre-frontal cortex. The day following the failed emergency surgery, he was on a ventilator. His wife signed the DNR order and arranged for a priest to give him last rites. He never had a chance to fight back, the doctors admitted, with that kind of irreversible damage, he was brain dead the very moment it happened. It became a matter of technicalities and life support and yesterday, ten days after it happened, he died.

With the exception of the friends and families of both of these good people, the world will continue to spin and life will go on. As unfair and tragic and heartbreaking as their deaths are, that's how it works. We all leave survivors. It's left me feeling angry and numb and wanting answers I'll never get.

Jane leaves a sister, a daughter and two sons. She was 61.

Jeff leaves a wife and a son. He was 59.

I'm drowning in gratitude just to be alive.