Poor Jim! I often made him pose for me in-between his blood-work and Dr. appointment. I’m pretty sure he got a little tired of it, but he always complied. I have photos of every stage of hair and every stage of health and sickness. The last few months I stopped the practice. I think I just forgot. He didn’t remind me.
I have spent this past month enduring all the stages of grief at once. It has not been pretty, but I think that now I have gotten past the worst of it. Or maybe I am just too tired to be sad. I have Covid so everything is a little muddled! It hasn’t been too bad. Thanks Pfizer. And I am nearing the end of it.
I decided to revisit the reason I started this Blog in the first place and that reason certainly had nothing to do with feeling sorry for myself. (I am only one in a sea of widows and widowers. Not to mention all of the other travesties of life there are in the world! I deserve no special treatment.) It was to give a frank portrait of how Cancer can change your life and your relationship with life.
I have to admit that grief is part of the discussion. I am pretty sure that both of us and some of our close friends have experienced grief throughout Jim’s journey. From that first cancer until his very last day. So it is not much of a surprise that it continues.
I think looking back to the very first day, to the very first time Jim called from UKMC to tell us he had just been diagnosed with cancer at the base of his tongue I experienced grief. Did I recognize it? Absolutely not! It was indistinguishable from all the many other emotions that rushed upon us. I think fear of an unknown future was predominant. Then fear of the cancer itself came in a close second.
Jim always had a good sense of the present and being present and accepting each stage of the process. And it was not an easy process by any stretch of the imagination.
My redirection will bring us back to the beginning, those first trips to UNMC. The decisions we made right and wrong. What we learned from them and what in hindsight we would have done differently.
But I have to go lay down now. I will continue this in the next post.