My Friend is Dying

    My friend is dying and I'm sad about that. In the past few weeks we've had three people pass away here in Hoonah. Two were pretty well advanced in years, one was my age or perhaps a little younger. All three succumbed to cancer. It's the same thing that is working its way through my friend's body. I believe it started in the pancreas and has moved through the uterus and other internal organs. She is dealing with a colostomy and has shaved her head, I suppose because her hair was falling out in patches because of chemo.She writes a blog and has included all of this factual information in it, as if it were happening to someone else and she were just an observer, recording the facts. Up until now she has been very strong, very stoic, at least outwardly, but her last post revealed  a sorrow that  has been kept private. Frankly, I'm glad that she shared some of her feelings. As human beings we sometimes hurt. We get scared or lonely or sad. We need each other to share our feelings with, to know that someone out there in this cold, indifferent world does care about us. More than the three folks who have passed away, this lady's illness has had quite an impact on me. We're friends, but not real close. Jan and I had dinner with her and her husband once, a meal I still remember. She had cooked clam chowder and I was so afraid I might not be able to choke it down- I hate clams. As it was, I had two bowls, and might have had three if I weren't afraid of appearing to be a horrible glutton. She's an incredible cook, but that's only one of her assets. She's worked in the medical field and in mines. She's a great writer and has the gift of putting you right into the scene of whatever she's writing about. She's fiercely independent and loves solitude. At one point in her life she lived down  Chatham Strait in a little hole in the wall harbor called Warm Springs Bay. She just recently purchased some property in Freshwater Bay and I believe she intended to build a cabin there in the woods. I'm not sure that she would have stayed, she never seemed to light in one place too long, always desiring to be deeper into the woods, to a place more remote. I'm struggling with the fact that she's so young, in her fifties I believe, and that her plans and hopes for the future have been dashed. She's leaving behind three daughters and though they're all adults, I'm sure she'd like to see how their lives will play out, to share in their joys and provide comfort in their times of sorrow. Barring the second coming of Christ, we're all going to die some time. Most of us know that, we just don't have an idea on any given day when that might be. With pancreatic cancer, the time is always short. I'm not sure how I would react if given the same diagnosis. It doesn't seem fair that some folks blessed with an abundance of talent or good will or kindness can pass through this life so quickly, and others whom I would deem less than worthy of long life seem to go on and on. It makes no sense to me, but I have to believe that God knows exactly what He's doing and what we can't begin to understand, He does. If we could peek into the future and see the wisdom of what He is doing, our questioning would seem quite out of place. A few years ago I had another friend who had cancer. It was brain cancer, and when she told me it was terminal, I rather glibly said, "we're all terminal." That's true. From the day we're born we start dying. It's the time in between that matters. Let's live our lives in such a manner that when we go people will mourn our passing and if there is a celebration, it won't be because we're finally gone, but because we lived a life worthy of celebrating, and when we breathe our last our savior will say of us, "well done good and faithful servant" and we'll be welcomed into eternal joy. I have one last thing to say about this. I sent an email to my friend and asked if I could do a post on her condition. For whatever reason, I never heard back. So Rene' if I have done something you would not approve of, please accept my apologies. Let me know how to erase this and I will. God bless you gal.