A Reflection on Death and Dying and the Nature of It All
My ex-wife’s father is dying of cancer.
It could be weeks. It could be a few months. He has cancer in his right lung, neck and lymph node, probably his brain and possibly his liver.
This is not a good prognosis.
It was sudden, just started last week, and then a whirlwind of doctor’s visits and the ER and to an oncologist and tests and scans and draining fluid from the lungs, and all of a sudden, he can no longer walk and you better call hospice.
He’s 83. It’s not unheard of.
These things happen all the time.
It’s sad and it’s not sad.
It’s sad because it’s going to hurt, for a lot of people, for a long time. There’s no way around it. There’s going to be pain. Lots of pain.
It’s not sad because it’s just life. Like I said, these things happen all the time.
My mom died of lung cancer. It was months, not weeks, but once the cancer hit the later stages, it goes fast, and the same routines, ER and doctor visits, hospital beds and hospice care, and her death hurt, she was much too young, lived a healthy lifestyle, exercised and ate well and took good care of herself, but cancer doesn’t care, the world around us doesn’t care, by which, I mean nature…
