Cancer Friends

There was a light knock on my door mid-week, and even though I was barely presentable, barely moving well, I opened the door.  It was my "cancer-friend" from across the lake.  Even though I didn't really know them as of last year, her husband had  "friended" me on facebook when he found out my diagnosis last December.  They have both dealt with cancer and he was still fighting it.  

This past year we have become beneficiaries of her recipe club she participates in - she has dropped off meals and brownies for us at the best possible times.  She stops for a bit, chats, then leaves.  

She has a bit of a what I am guessing is a soft Scottish brogue, and when she saw me at the door not too much on this side of life, she said "oh, you are not feeling well", and then she said she wouldn't stay, but just wanted to let me know that they had taken her husband to hospice that day.  

I could not stop the immediate tears.  

I just hugged her neck and begged her to come in for a moment if she could.  We sat close together on the couch and she told me his condition.  She told me that they had not been able to finish his radiation and chemo he had undertaken a few months ago.  She told me he had not emailed me recently because he wasn't able to tell me.  

She said he had wanted her to stop and tell me now about the hospice, he knew I would want to know.  

I cried and cried and told her how sorry I was.  I tried to put into words what his online friendship had meant to me.  I tried to tell her, but my words were woefully inept.  

I wanted to tell her about the times when it seems that all my friends had forgotten me, nor had time, nor had inclination to know what to do for me, I would see a message from Bill in my in-box and know it would be full of encouragement and hope and a reminder that above all else to stay in the fight.  

He was one to talk to and commiserate with, yet one to be glad that we had another day to feel life's blessing on us.  

And I think that is how it goes mostly.  Maybe, those that have been in the fight are the ones to talk to about the fight, because it is difficult for others to understand.  Maybe like soldiers coming home from a war they cannot talk about to anyone else, because the trauma doesn't make sense to anyone else.  

Walking through "cancer-land" is can be a mine field and it is wearying to the best.  To throw yourself in with another and help shoulder the load some days is comforting, and to talk with ones that know the "in-country fighting", and aren't afraid to talk about the battles and ugliness because they have seen those trenches, is a help to a war-weary heart.  

That's what Bill was to me - a friend in the trenches that I would not have known otherwise.  You tell them things you wouldn't tell anyone else.  You share pain that no one else will understand.  It's the every-day-ness of the battle that you can talk to someone about it all - someone who shares that same every-day-ness.  

Diane left a message on my phone last night - Bill had died.  

She had no tears, she is a strong lady.  

I listened mostly all night to my online Bible, and prayed for him, for them.  

I was reminded that we are all "vapors", we are all suspect to the same outcome to this thing called life.  I lay there and thought about what Bill had done for me with just simple typing, simple reaching out, simple words.  I so appreciate his help.  

One of his favorite things to say was a quote from his father:  "we can stands most anything".  

I know I will really miss him.