We Always Ask WHY?

That's a terrible way to go, but it sounds like she didn't let it break her spirit.

It's great that you all got to say your good byes. It makes it a lot easier I think.

I lost my dad to cancer on May 7th (which is also my wife's birthday, the nerve of some people) I was with him the day before he went, and we talked and spent time, and I thank the universe for that afternoon. I didn't make it to the hospital in time to be there when he left, he was out of it anyway at that point, but it still hurts.

I feel like you just have to let go of how bad the end was and focus on the great person that you experienced.

I missed a lot of time with my father in his life, but we had become close, and he got to know my wife and kids. And that is priceless.

I wish you and your family the best. I really enjoyed meeting you down in RI. Hope to see you soon.
 
I guess you just never know why.

This past Sat, my brother-in-law dropped dead from a massive pulmonary embolism in his heart. We found him yesterday morning lying dead on his feet against the kitchen and counter wall.

I was just talking with him at the funeral a few weeks ago and he was saying what a terrible shame that it was that our sister-in-law had to suffer so much over the last 3 years….at least he went quickly, but at 46 years old, IMO, that is still way too young.
 
I'm also sorry for your loss Chris - and compounded w/ the sudden death of another family member.

I've been on my back with a heart failure the last 2 months - after loosing my home/shop/tools/cars and trucks - and animals, most of them pets, in a freak flood but the failed ventricle was the result of cancer treatment I got starting in 1991 - radiation and chemo and a transplant of my bone marrow. I've been more than just physically active the last 20 years - have helped many other patients correlate appropriate treatments with their conditions - something not often done right in the standardized treatment regimens of modern therapies. Often the ravages of treatment is brutal beyond measure - in my case two decades later - but are more often necessary as many more people, like your sister who never smoked, succumb to this disease that's pervasively increasing. Not one foundation, who's job is to secure billions in "research" fundraising has ever been - nor will ever be - researching and fighting to change the very causes that we know to associate cancer with. Not the ACS, Susan Kohlman, Lance Armstrong, and the countless others that claim they help us all - want to enter that arena...except to promote anti-smoking campaigns - it would be too much to question the very core of how America and Western cultures do business. We can't question the toxic or the spoiled or the mutated fraud in business that most political candidates want less restrictions and zero monitored safety inspections on - all in the claims of "more jobs" or a healthier economy.

Cancer's a bitch, like a loved one's life unfairly taken short or one's world crumbling around their being but what is....is and often times when someone gets ahold of me because they were just diagnosed with what I had
years ago I try to tell them that as bad as it gets - SOMETHING good will come of it, maybe not now or anytime soon....but it does. It takes bad before we can even realize what is good. I experienced this and again - I'm faced with terrible odds that most likely will not fall in my favor (heart transplant) but will watch me waste away and take me from my family. If I told you my failing health and approaching death (if the cards fall that way) was what exactly my family (son and daughter and wife) needed to rally together and get our home rebuilt, lives back on focus, and especially working together on a common cause needed and the healing I'm watching occur as a result - almost makes my demise worth it - maybe it does - and I will fight regardless - to live the precious gift we all have - often much shorter and expensive than we realized as young-un's it would ultimately cost us.

I'm again, sorry for the loss you have - it's no small matter - and wish we all could change the way life hands-out it's little realities. Bless you.

Reed
 
Wow Reed, I had no idea the health problems that you are going through (and have went through). My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I wish you the best in your battles ahead.

Thank you for your kind words, but what I am facing, pales to what you are going through.
 
it doesn't "pale" in comparison Chris - each has it's own impacts and costs...and your's is a horrible nightmare of a reality - that we often loose something so very dear to us. I'm lucky, for each night in ICU when my family would visit from driving 80 miles away then start to pick-up and leave out my door, I crumbled with the reality I might not see them again, ever. It wasn't really me crying for my situation - I was crying for them going on with life without me. I mourned how death would effect them.

My situation also has me here - staying at a friend's huge house nearer to town (in case I need 911 or my portable defib device goes off), for I'm home with my family now - although waiting for approval from both insurance and the big boys - and not being able to do more than read the internet and trying to eat a salt-free diet (to get some of the 40-odd lbs I've lost back maybe) and not being complete in any sense of the word - I'm here with my family and my precious dogs tied outside whining for me - although I can't bend-down to pet them - my heart can't be fixed (it's been more than once I've gone thru this problem before) but rather "replaced" and I'm not opting for that for many others younger and more deserving need it more (I have to have a LVAD installed -when the powers that be approve - on my failing heart for another year or two of life - then maybe stem-cell therapy - if the current studies pan out well - in a couple more years). I'm alive and feeling more so than most people will ever in their lifetimes - which is the gift of the catastrophe that bad also brings good - and right now I am FULLY realizing it. There are few human beings alive right now that realize these feelings I'm experiencing - even being 'crippled' as I am with little or no comparison to what I was - or could do before this all went down, the night of the flood and the start of my cardiac failure. I get zero B-B-Q and no move EVER; Mexican food or pickles or catsup or hamburger buns or baked goods or chicken-fried steak or crusted panfish caught in my stream. No sex, no lying on my side, no sneezing or coughing or running or even laying prone in a bathtub - and even swimming (LVAD has cables) forever,not to mention butter and cream and cheese and cheetos, salsa, and potato chips or tortillas - gone for evermore. I dream about running, climbing, sex, and salt - then i awake to this. I'm fine: I know how to try to heal and even if things don't work...I'm here now where I didn't think possible a month ago - even a week ago.

You've had a deep and forever - a hurtful loss. There's not a pill or a book or a tangible process available that will lesson the pain for you but you have to know that your sister isn't feeling this and is free of the emotional and personal costs we all pay as a result of such a hit we take when something so bad happens to us - all of us eventually.

Just want to express a thank you (but I'm healing none-the-less and maybe even not, so what?!) and the companionship in all of us here at TreeBuzz for your current situation and despair - life can and more often hurts than rewards, but we are human and that itself is a gift we realize we all were given but the costs of living our lives is steep, the higher as we age and experience more - yet it's the loss we experience that contribute to who and what we are.

Reed
 
[ QUOTE ]
Why do bad things always seem to happen to good people? We always ask this question.

Last night my sister-in-law passed away after battling cancer for almost 3 years. She had lung cancer but was never a smoker.

She was given last rites last week and still hung in for another week. I've know her since we were kids and she had the strongest faith from anyone that I have ever known.

I know we aren't supposed to have the answers, but I still have to ask why?

[/ QUOTE ]

Been there Brother,
we just never will know for sure as the "why" is most often beyond our minuscule bit of comprehension. I have this theory though, that God takes the sinners and the saints early... SO if the person is royally screwing up, God pulls the plug before he does his karma any more damage, and when a person is so good in heart and soul that they no longer need to be here to learn or develop or whatever it is we are really here to do, they get an early pass.. the rest of us get to stay and hopefully enjoy life a little. Being that close to death is often a reminder that we would benefit from being just a bit kinder to each other..

Lots of love to you and the whole family..
 
Reed,

Thank you for your thoughts. In the end, I guess, the best we can do is the best we can do. I appreciate your time to articulate that which should be so obvious!

Tony
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom