The Laughing Wolf

Thank You

I want to thank everyone for all the kind words and thoughts both public and private. They mean a lot, not just to me but I hope to the family as well.

It is funny how some people come into your life and make barely a ripple, and others come in quietly but then... Such people usually have a good effect, and she did on me. It is hard to believe that I did not know her all my life...

I've not handled parts of the last few weeks well, IMO, because this has raised some old ghosts for me. I knew all too well what she was going through, for I lost both Mom and Dad to cancer. Some of what was going on raised memories of Mom, of in her last days being able to pick her up in my arms -- a nightmare of hers. Years before, a work colleague had lost their mother to cancer, and this "boy" as she called him, had picked up his mom so that her bed could be changed. She did not like that, and felt that no son should have to do that to their mothers, and clean them as if they were a child. I picked her up from the sofa and held her dead weight in my arms so the "bedding" (pads to catch the blood and dreck that came from her as cancer ate her insides away). Another cleaned the puddle that formed on the floor, and cleaned her as well. At least she was spared that indignity... Such memories have made it hard for me to deal, to accept. It was Heather that had the strength and courage to tell me goodbye, though I sent word back that it was not goodbye, but an until-we-meet-again.

I find myself avoiding another person right now, and not just because of the long talks and lectures that can result. This male is fighting prostate cancer, and in watching him I can see things that remind me of my Dad, though the two are nothing alike in most respects. It is what the cancer does, the mannerisms it imparts that make me go to some lengths to avoid the person.

I had thought these ghosts slain and dealt with, but obviously not. Have a few things I am going to need to work on here soon...

And I will do it. I have already started to move on and stop feeling sorry for myself, for that is what most mourning truly is. Besides, if I don't, I feel sure that a certain cantankerous ursine will find a way to kick my sorry rear. You know, that knowledge actually is a pretty good thing and feeling.

LW