This life is so unimportant anyway

 I feel like this is all I do so I really was going to do something else but when I could finally get to it and started it I realized I could not let this go.

This past Saturday someone who I feel had begun to become a dear friend of mine I lost way too soon. We’d known each other a long time but our paths diverged in that snowy wood almost at the beginning; they would interwine occassionally over the years but only to separate again. However, a couple of years ago they actually came together and we began to walk alongside. It wasn’t long after her father-in-law passed away (oh, dear, another way – oh my – did I miss this one – I may go back and check – this was the year of my mom’s hip – do we even know about the rest of that year – anyway this was probably the next thing that happened right after son and dil left that time but still had the others here – anyway ok) who was also really a good friend of mine’s father – got that? don’t let the computer crash! – which, at that time she and her husband (my other friend’s brother) were separated, maybe even divorced – part of the diverging path as part of her long story – but that may have been the beginning of her coming back because, as I said, it wasn’t long after that. It was a hard struggle for them both because, as you know, once you’ve gotten past that pain and begun to move on, it’s almost more painful to think about starting over but as he says God gave him a love back for her and they began to see each other again and eventually got remarried.  However, in that interim period, while she was in her/their house alone she would sit out on her steps so lonely and I would stop and we would visit and began to get close, almost so much so that I somewhat regretted when they did get married and that time was over.  But it turned out she needed that more than any of us could have thought at the time – she began to have severe pain – and, again, not to have one of those conditions where everytime somebody hears about somebody else who has something that’s what they have as well but at about the same time – however, without me knowing that that was what was going on with her – my daughter-in-law began to have the same situation. Both of them went to the emergency room; both had CT scans – my daughter-in-law was placed in the hospital with pancreatitis and again, unknown to us at the time, while she was there, they had the chaplain come to see her – this makes the 3rd time she’s gone through this, before with both her daughters, the first time when she lost her first one; the 2nd time when she almost lost her second one and now this time when we almost lost her. She’s so young she has a hard time grasping what’s going on even though she knows she lost her own mother and then sometimes it’s so hard she just feels she just doesn’t care – maybe her mother went through that as well –  but she really does because she doesn’t want her own daughter to go through what she has and in her case she doesn’t have to if she’ll start now to get her situation under contro. However, in my friend’s case that wasn’t possible – when she had her CT scan they found a mass which turned out to be cancerous part of which was wrapped around her aorta so they didn’t want to touch it and risk nicking it then she was too weak to have treatment but she did begin to get stronger when – and this part makes me angry – she developed a staph infection in her surgical wound (so she had to go in and have it reopened it and cleaned out )- so that just set her back and weakened her further and also encouraged the cancer making it more aggressive, ultimately leaving her no time for treatment – they began to up (or would it be down – shorten anyway) her prognosis from – a stretch mind you – 2 years – to what ended up being not quite 2 months from the time of her surgery. In some ways, if my son and daughter-in-law could get a settlement from the hospital regarding their daughter – I almost feel her husband should try for something from them in this situation, not for him – their children are grown, but they have a grandchild who could really use the help – well, really, most of them could – but one in particular never got to know her – I don’t know if that’s better or worse than the ones that did, but it’s something that really bothered her – he’s a yr. so even if she’d managed to live the full two years they’d originally possibily given her he’d still be just 3 so I don’t know if he would really have gained anything but she wanted to write him letters or maybe even record some things for him to hear her voice – something just to let him know – but she never got to do any of that. I was going to get her something to do it with and I was told I needed to hurry but I hadn’t heard the whole story and I never expected and never got it done – they say not to put it off but I did and it seems so senseless why now – I’m going to try to see if there’s not something I can still do. I have some ideas. 

We miss her so; it seemed life was just turning around for her – but she made the comment, though, that as it had in the past, it could turn again, that maybe it was best this way and we certainly would rather remember her like this than if that had happened so if so we’re glad it happened the way it did.

Also before this ever happened this last couple of years had been so precious; so much that had been so important to her through life had already come to mean so little; this life is so fleeting anyway, as my grandmother said, who lived to be 100, that none of it really matters anyway.

I don’t want to forget that; that would be my best memorial to her.