Every time I hear about yet another person dying from inoperable lung cancer it just makes me even more sad. (Beverly Sills died today.) I don't know how you can not jump to the conclusion that your time with a cancer-diagnoised person is a ticking time bomb especially when they aren't given the option of being in remission or even given a time frame of how long doctors might think they have.

Although my Aunt Margaret and uncle Al prime stories of survival. She's had breast cancer and several other cancers since I was about 10 or 12. Her husband Al also has had cancer, strokes, he has alzheimer's and parkinson's disease and both of them are still "alive and kickin'" as Uncle Al used to say. Now he mostly just wishes to be dead but somehow God still wants him around. Also as much as I know he's in pain and selfish of me to even think this but I hope he stays around because that stupid old wives tale that death happens in three's has happened in my family for every death in our immediate family and well...I don't really want to be superstitious but the odds aren't real good for the several people I know dealing with serious health problems to risk a person dying anytime soon.

That's also why I'm going home this week. Your parents get to a certain age and health scenario when every time the phone rings you cautiously answer it and hope the person on the other end doesn't have something terrible to say. Heck, I think that's why Jerry's car accident last week shook me up too...I knew in his voice something terrible had happened (which thankfully wasn't as terrible as him getting hurt) but in my head you sort of unconsciously jump to the conclusion that the bad news is closer than you think. And when I stupidly play the scenario in my head - it's always Jerry that calls.

I have hope that dad might live longer than the doctor's think. The problem lies in the idea that I don't think he has all that much hope and without that and faith that God's plan may mean God knows more than doctor's diagnoisis well... it's getting more and more difficult not to wait and wonder instead of just enjoying life together one day at a time. I still hang on to my little girl dreams of wanting him to walk me down the aisle or dance with me at my wedding. I hope to at least catch that gleam in his eye when he hopefully holds his first granddaughter -- the other two might just be pipe dreams, especially as the dating-well has seemingly dried up the last several years...mostly self-inflicted but still kind of dry all the same.

It's probably not all that uncommon to feel like you might be seeing someone for the very last time when you live far away. I try not to get too melancholy every time I go home but I don't know how you can really NOT think about those sorts of things.

Ah well..