Donum of Vita

I apologize for the month long hiatus. Yes, I’m sure I’ve been missed since my follow-ship is all but fifteen – but an important fifteen they are. It’s been a rough few weeks. Yep, you guessed it Cancer…with a capital C.

I’ve been blessed to attend only two funerals thus far in my life.  Cancer has only touched me, and my best friend. Even so, I was still too young to consider that “knowing someone with cancer.”  Aside from that, my mom had a brain tumor when I was fourteen, but again I was still quite young to grasp any severity.  That changed this week. This week, my beloved Grandmother was diagnosed with a lung mass and cancer spread throughout her bones. She’s not expected to live much longer, but I’ll be blessed enough to pay her a final visit this week.

Unfortunately, I’m now experiencing what it’s like to be scared for someone you love.  It’s much different when it happens to you. When it’s you, you will yourself to put up the best damn fight you have in you. The only thing you’re scared for is figuring out how to put family and friends at ease. That’s what you try to control; you try to control how other people feel about you.  When it’s someone you love, it’s out of your hands.  It’s not your battle to fight.  So you spend hours wondering what’s next. Waiting for your phone call down the telephone tree.  Getting swelled with emotion at the most random of times.

I got to talk to my grandmother yesterday, Mother’s day.  Gramma grew up at the beach, and would check Tales of Balboa daily from her Portland home. Yesterday she asked me about the gorgeous fog that would sit heavy in the coastal air, and said, “I miss those diamonds of light that sparkle on top of the ocean.”

I don’t think she realized she’s been the diamond of light in ocean that is our lives. I’ll miss her. I hate cancer.