Latest on Brandy

Cheryl wrote:

Marina, this is the part that makes my heart feel squeezed until it
can't beat:

That carefree, naive
person is gone forever,
And I am mourning that loss too.

I don't know how to be the same as I was after this. Because I'm
not. I am coming to terms with him gone, but what is left behind
with me is not a happy person.

I agree that you probably will never be the person you were before.
But I also believe that you won't always be the person you are now.
I believe that you can heal, and can find some joy in life again. Not
that you'll return to the life you had when your son was alive, but
that you'll find some new way of being that is probably not even
conceivable to you now. That might not be much comfort to you right
now, but I wouldn't expect it to be - the loss is still too fresh.
Sometime down the road, though, you might find yourself feeling different.

At least, that is my experience with every loss I've ever had in my
life. For a while, it doesn't seem as though I'll ever be happy again.
That seems to go on forever. The there's that day when I first hear
myself laughing, for the first time in ages. And there's that first
time when I'm able to have a good time, or look forward to something,
or be joyful about one thing, or just appreciate something simple in
life. I can't get to that point until I've grieved for whatever time is
necessary, but when I do, it's like the sun coming out for the first
time in years.

It's not that all the pain goes away when that happens, but it is the
point when I realize that I want to go on living, that there are reasons
why life is worth living, and that I have hope again that I can be happy.

I remember one line from Desiderata (sp?) - you know, that poem about
being a child of the universe, and so on. Anyway, the line goes, "Neither
be cynical about love, for love is as perennial as the grass." For some
reason, that line has always stuck with me, and has reminded me time and
again that even when things seem completely hopeless, that I could never
love again or never feel joyful again, that the grass will grow back once
again, like it does year after year. It might be deep winter now, but
life does continue, and it will come back.

{{{Purrs}}}

Joyce

"Cheryl" wrote in message
...
In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes", "Marina"
artfully composed this message within
on 24 Aug 2004:

Cheryl, that poem is so true, and I think you're right about why
people react (or don't react) like they do.

Marina, this is the part that makes my heart feel squeezed until it
can't beat:

That carefree, naive
person is gone forever,
And I am mourning that loss too.

I don't know how to be the same as I was after this. Because I'm
not. I am coming to terms with him gone, but what is left behind
with me is not a happy person. I miss him so much. I miss what the
future would have been. I miss watching him excel in his field that
was new to him, but he was so good at it at, and I dream about
going to see his band play because I never got to do that. They
played so late at night at parties that I felt too old to go to,
besides I was usually sound asleep when their set came on at 11 or
12 at night. And I feel cheated out of being a grandmother because
I would have been good at it. My thoughts sometimes go back to the
day when he was about 17 and told me the girl he was seeing was
pregnant. My heart stopped then because he hesitated before he told
me the baby wasn't his, that she was already pregnant when he met
her. Now I dream about a different outcome and that it was his baby
and I would have a part of him still in this world. I just really
really miss him with all of my heart.

{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}} Cheryl. I'm so sorry.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

"Cheryl" wrote in message
...
In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes", "Marina"
artfully composed this message within
on 24 Aug 2004:

Cheryl, that poem is so true, and I think you're right about why
people react (or don't react) like they do.

Marina, this is the part that makes my heart feel squeezed until it
can't beat:

That carefree, naive
person is gone forever,
And I am mourning that loss too.

I don't know how to be the same as I was after this. Because I'm
not. I am coming to terms with him gone, but what is left behind
with me is not a happy person. I miss him so much. I miss what the
future would have been. I miss watching him excel in his field that
was new to him, but he was so good at it at, and I dream about
going to see his band play because I never got to do that. They
played so late at night at parties that I felt too old to go to,
besides I was usually sound asleep when their set came on at 11 or
12 at night. And I feel cheated out of being a grandmother because
I would have been good at it. My thoughts sometimes go back to the
day when he was about 17 and told me the girl he was seeing was
pregnant. My heart stopped then because he hesitated before he told
me the baby wasn't his, that she was already pregnant when he met
her. Now I dream about a different outcome and that it was his baby
and I would have a part of him still in this world. I just really
really miss him with all of my heart.

{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}} Cheryl. I'm so sorry.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

"Cheryl" wrote in message
...
In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes", "Marina"
artfully composed this message within
on 24 Aug 2004:

Cheryl, that poem is so true, and I think you're right about why
people react (or don't react) like they do.

Marina, this is the part that makes my heart feel squeezed until it
can't beat:

That carefree, naive
person is gone forever,
And I am mourning that loss too.

I don't know how to be the same as I was after this. Because I'm
not. I am coming to terms with him gone, but what is left behind
with me is not a happy person. I miss him so much. I miss what the
future would have been. I miss watching him excel in his field that
was new to him, but he was so good at it at, and I dream about
going to see his band play because I never got to do that. They
played so late at night at parties that I felt too old to go to,
besides I was usually sound asleep when their set came on at 11 or
12 at night. And I feel cheated out of being a grandmother because
I would have been good at it. My thoughts sometimes go back to the
day when he was about 17 and told me the girl he was seeing was
pregnant. My heart stopped then because he hesitated before he told
me the baby wasn't his, that she was already pregnant when he met
her. Now I dream about a different outcome and that it was his baby
and I would have a part of him still in this world. I just really
really miss him with all of my heart.

{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}} Cheryl. I'm so sorry.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

SUQKRT wrote:
In article . net,
Tanada wrote:



CatNipped wrote:


No problem Tweed, it takes a while to get all us characters here
straight (we tend to be equally weird, which is what makes this
group so nice to be part of).



I'm not weird, I'm extremely strange.


Unique is a good word.
Suz

Weird, strange, unique. These sound like cat characteristics to me.
Which must explain why you're all such nice people. :-)
--
Purrs and headbutts.

Adrian (Owned by Snoopy & Bagheera)
A house is not a home, without a cat.

SUQKRT wrote:
In article . net,
Tanada wrote:



CatNipped wrote:


No problem Tweed, it takes a while to get all us characters here
straight (we tend to be equally weird, which is what makes this
group so nice to be part of).



I'm not weird, I'm extremely strange.


Unique is a good word.
Suz

Weird, strange, unique. These sound like cat characteristics to me.
Which must explain why you're all such nice people. :-)
--
Purrs and headbutts.

Adrian (Owned by Snoopy & Bagheera)
A house is not a home, without a cat.

SUQKRT wrote:
In article . net,
Tanada wrote:



CatNipped wrote:


No problem Tweed, it takes a while to get all us characters here
straight (we tend to be equally weird, which is what makes this
group so nice to be part of).



I'm not weird, I'm extremely strange.


Unique is a good word.
Suz

Weird, strange, unique. These sound like cat characteristics to me.
Which must explain why you're all such nice people. :-)
--
Purrs and headbutts.

Adrian (Owned by Snoopy & Bagheera)
A house is not a home, without a cat.

Howard Berkowitz wrote: (snip)

Interesting flashbacks to me. I've come to the conclusion that you only
have a chance to do the right thing for the patient, and often just
screw the rest. Almost 30 years ago, my mother had metastatic breast
cancer, and chemotherapy in a community hospital was rather new to
everyone there.

This was in New Jersey while I lived in DC. Much to the annoyance of
some of the local relatives, I had surrogate powers, and after a bit,
chart access. I knew what drugs my mother was taking, what the usual
side effects would be, and her general condition as observed by the
staff.

When I first visited, before I went into the room, I knew that she would
have lost most or all of her hair, and would have a very puffy face due
to corticosteroid-caused fluid retention. So, I walked into the room
and didn't go into any shock -- I just talked to her normally.

Relatives that had been present took me to task for being "unemotional"
and dealing with her "like a normal person." While I had no illusions
of cure at this point, I also upset them because I didn't want to wail
about the (non-imminent) end.

There was no real way to communicate with relatives that still thought
of me as a child, but also were stuck in superstition. Most could only
say "the big C", while I was reading the pathology reports and
discussing staging with the oncologist. It was somehow offensive to my
aunts (inlaws) especially that when I made suggestions to the treatment
team, I accompanied them with journal references or reference reports
that the rest of the family couldn't understand.

My best friend's mother has some kind of lymphatic cancer, and you know,
outside of her one son's partner and the son from DC, the only one's who've
been to see her are Louie and me? Her bald head from chemo makes her only
surviving sister uncomfortable. He son who lives not five miles from Mama, and
his wife and children, don't come by, Joyce told me they haven't even called.
The other son, who lives in Maryland, comes up each weekend to see Mama and his
partner (who lives now with Joyce.) I'm just disgusted at the rest. The one boy
lives a spit away and his family won't come because they figure it's bad luck
to look death in the face. (the truth of the mater is the chemo's working, the
tumor's shrinking, and the "markers" in the blood are way lower than at the
start.) Oh yeah, God forbid--The C-Word, only all right to mention in gossip!

Joyce is an inspiring, tough old bird. She's not too vain to go out in public
with her bald head and give a "Well what the f**k you looking at?" when someone
stares too long. She'll joke with us about painting a target on her head so
that the birds know where to drop one, then she can go play the lotto. (An old
superstition, still believed by many of the old Poles locally, says that if a
bird drops one on your head, it's good luck and you'll come into money.) She's
held on through abuse, poverty, and the cancer with good humor and good faith.
She'll be moving to Maryland with my best buddy when it's over. I'll miss them
both.

Blessed be,

Baha

Howard Berkowitz wrote: (snip)

Interesting flashbacks to me. I've come to the conclusion that you only
have a chance to do the right thing for the patient, and often just
screw the rest. Almost 30 years ago, my mother had metastatic breast
cancer, and chemotherapy in a community hospital was rather new to
everyone there.

This was in New Jersey while I lived in DC. Much to the annoyance of
some of the local relatives, I had surrogate powers, and after a bit,
chart access. I knew what drugs my mother was taking, what the usual
side effects would be, and her general condition as observed by the
staff.

When I first visited, before I went into the room, I knew that she would
have lost most or all of her hair, and would have a very puffy face due
to corticosteroid-caused fluid retention. So, I walked into the room
and didn't go into any shock -- I just talked to her normally.

Relatives that had been present took me to task for being "unemotional"
and dealing with her "like a normal person." While I had no illusions
of cure at this point, I also upset them because I didn't want to wail
about the (non-imminent) end.

There was no real way to communicate with relatives that still thought
of me as a child, but also were stuck in superstition. Most could only
say "the big C", while I was reading the pathology reports and
discussing staging with the oncologist. It was somehow offensive to my
aunts (inlaws) especially that when I made suggestions to the treatment
team, I accompanied them with journal references or reference reports
that the rest of the family couldn't understand.

My best friend's mother has some kind of lymphatic cancer, and you know,
outside of her one son's partner and the son from DC, the only one's who've
been to see her are Louie and me? Her bald head from chemo makes her only
surviving sister uncomfortable. He son who lives not five miles from Mama, and
his wife and children, don't come by, Joyce told me they haven't even called.
The other son, who lives in Maryland, comes up each weekend to see Mama and his
partner (who lives now with Joyce.) I'm just disgusted at the rest. The one boy
lives a spit away and his family won't come because they figure it's bad luck
to look death in the face. (the truth of the mater is the chemo's working, the
tumor's shrinking, and the "markers" in the blood are way lower than at the
start.) Oh yeah, God forbid--The C-Word, only all right to mention in gossip!

Joyce is an inspiring, tough old bird. She's not too vain to go out in public
with her bald head and give a "Well what the f**k you looking at?" when someone
stares too long. She'll joke with us about painting a target on her head so
that the birds know where to drop one, then she can go play the lotto. (An old
superstition, still believed by many of the old Poles locally, says that if a
bird drops one on your head, it's good luck and you'll come into money.) She's
held on through abuse, poverty, and the cancer with good humor and good faith.
She'll be moving to Maryland with my best buddy when it's over. I'll miss them
both.

Blessed be,

Baha

Howard Berkowitz wrote: (snip)

Interesting flashbacks to me. I've come to the conclusion that you only
have a chance to do the right thing for the patient, and often just
screw the rest. Almost 30 years ago, my mother had metastatic breast
cancer, and chemotherapy in a community hospital was rather new to
everyone there.

This was in New Jersey while I lived in DC. Much to the annoyance of
some of the local relatives, I had surrogate powers, and after a bit,
chart access. I knew what drugs my mother was taking, what the usual
side effects would be, and her general condition as observed by the
staff.

When I first visited, before I went into the room, I knew that she would
have lost most or all of her hair, and would have a very puffy face due
to corticosteroid-caused fluid retention. So, I walked into the room
and didn't go into any shock -- I just talked to her normally.

Relatives that had been present took me to task for being "unemotional"
and dealing with her "like a normal person." While I had no illusions
of cure at this point, I also upset them because I didn't want to wail
about the (non-imminent) end.

There was no real way to communicate with relatives that still thought
of me as a child, but also were stuck in superstition. Most could only
say "the big C", while I was reading the pathology reports and
discussing staging with the oncologist. It was somehow offensive to my
aunts (inlaws) especially that when I made suggestions to the treatment
team, I accompanied them with journal references or reference reports
that the rest of the family couldn't understand.

My best friend's mother has some kind of lymphatic cancer, and you know,
outside of her one son's partner and the son from DC, the only one's who've
been to see her are Louie and me? Her bald head from chemo makes her only
surviving sister uncomfortable. He son who lives not five miles from Mama, and
his wife and children, don't come by, Joyce told me they haven't even called.
The other son, who lives in Maryland, comes up each weekend to see Mama and his
partner (who lives now with Joyce.) I'm just disgusted at the rest. The one boy
lives a spit away and his family won't come because they figure it's bad luck
to look death in the face. (the truth of the mater is the chemo's working, the
tumor's shrinking, and the "markers" in the blood are way lower than at the
start.) Oh yeah, God forbid--The C-Word, only all right to mention in gossip!

Joyce is an inspiring, tough old bird. She's not too vain to go out in public
with her bald head and give a "Well what the f**k you looking at?" when someone
stares too long. She'll joke with us about painting a target on her head so
that the birds know where to drop one, then she can go play the lotto. (An old
superstition, still believed by many of the old Poles locally, says that if a
bird drops one on your head, it's good luck and you'll come into money.) She's
held on through abuse, poverty, and the cancer with good humor and good faith.
She'll be moving to Maryland with my best buddy when it's over. I'll miss them
both.

Blessed be,

Baha