The sad come clean post

I am back. It has been a looooonnnnnnnggggggg weekend. This is the kind of shit, and I do mean shit, that I have been living for the past couple of weeks at least. It seems the salty and sad part of life has reared its ugly head in my neck of the woods. It is not for the light of heart as this stuff is pretty heavy, even if I am a step removed.

Then again, in my own life, I have long tried to remain a step removed. That is how I deal with the impermanence of life. I am not saying it is the best way, but it has worked for me. Then again, a great consequence of that is to never really feel connected to others. They are always put at arm's length. That way when they go, which they always do, I am not as pained as I would be if the connections were deeper.

It is with that in mind, I state for the record, that my Outlaws are both making their long march down. I have chronicled the mental and physical deterioration of my father in law here numerous times. That still continues and gets worse and worse. The comprehension is not there but that is not his fault. He was never really connected to the outside world as long as I have known him.

I had been told that he was but he tragically lost his best friend and his wife to a house fire. That turned their kids into orphans. The older one, who is a bit older than me, I have met. Actually, he is married to my cousin's sister (my cousin's wife) who I went to junior high and high school with. Anyway, the Wife says that my father in law was never the same after that. So maybe, he stopped connecting because connecting inevitably brings pain when death rears its ugly head.

The Wife has to contend with this. So did my mother in law. She had been having trouble swallowing for a little bit. Long story short, they stopped her surgery short 10 days ago. The mass was too big to remove as it was. We were given 2 possibilities. How surreal it is and was that the "better" choice was esophageal cancer (anaplastic thyroid cancer was the second). Esophageal cancer can be treated (on the most hopeful of notes) and there is no effective treatment for anaplastic thyroid cancer. Anyway, she has esophageal cancer.

The big problem is that the symptoms of esophageal cancer are so diffuse that it is rarely detected when it can be treated "easily". That is where we are right now. It is apparent that my mother in law's time with us can be measured in months if not weeks. My father in law is not really with us. The Wife seems to see herself being an orphan in a very short time.

We all thought that my father in law would be the first to go. It is nothing short of a medical miracle that he still physically exists. He has had high blood pressure and heart problems. My thinking is that because he does not seem to listen to anybody or anything so when told by doctors about his ailments he continues to not listen and lives on. It is the ultimate act of defiance or obliviousness, take your pick.

As my mother in law deteriorates, he will too, both physically and mentally. This ain't gonna be a fun ride for anybody. My sister in law has been great. She keeps coming in and will sit on speaker phone when the Wife and my mother meet with the radiologist and oncologist tomorrow. I suspect the news will be that it is too far gone and that my mother in law is too weak to handle the radiation. They need to do that to shrink the mass before they can even consider operating.

She says that she "wants to be helped" but it seems a passive request. She has to help herself. She may be too weak to fight. She may have no fight left in her. She has to be honest with herself and us on that one. That is not something she is good at being. That is her. If the fight is gone, that, too is okay. I certainly do not blame her nor would I be angry at her for that. It is a sad, sad situation. It is life and must be handled by engaging the process head on.

For me, it is all bad. I am powerless to do anything other than comfort a sobbing wife at 3 in the morning. Actually, at just about any time of day or night. I guess that is my role here. Having danced down this road myself, I know how it works. There are always differences and the experience is still similar enough.

The Wife and the world is losing a truly wonderful (her favourite adjective) soul. She would not hurt anybody or anything (well, maybe she would but it was unintentional and only due to her handiwork in the kitchen). I may have to ask the Wife to get her to give us all her recipes (then we can burn them, so they do another harm, though her roast beef is pretty good, that may be it, though).

I may go on about this for a bit. I think it helps me to work through some of what I am feeling. Then again, I have to live in the moment and visit with her to squeeze the good out of our last minutes together. That is life.

Be back soon. Ciao!