Letter to a Dying Friend

An email I wrote to a close friend this morning:

. . .

I have been reading a novel called The Art of Racing in the Rain. It is a story narrated by the family dog's thoughts and a lot of it is about the main character's wife (Eve) dying of brain cancer. It is a very good book, but so difficult for me to read. For the last year I have basically been in the dog's situation--he can't talk or be involved, go into the hospitals, visit Eve, offer any real or practical help. Even in the part I read last evening: after she was moved home to await death, Eve had the dog (Enzo) lay down next to her through the night and plead with him to keep death away for just that one night. He did, but not by offering any real help...just by being there; basically what I did when I talked into the phone at you for a couple hours that night you were struggling in the hospital. Though only involved on the periphery, and to the extent of his limited ability, Enzo feels all the pain, fear, disappointment, etc. He longs for the happy times—when the family could do random things and take random trips; when there was joy and not just melancholic routine around the house; basically, when they were all together and did not have cancer and death looming overhead, around every corner.

The book is so, so difficult to read, yet I can't put it down. It describes my life over the last year and packages it into a harcover bound book of about 300 pages. It is my sorrow and my grief literally spelled out in front of me.

I hate all this—I'm sure not as much as you do, but absolute hatred nonetheless; hatred for this disease, for the bad in the world that imposes on the good, for the fact that I am sitting here in my little cubicle right now literally fighting off big, inconvenient tears. I hate my broken heart and this world's unforgiving, unrelenting grip on it. I hate to watch a beloved friend fight such an unfair battle on a very uneven playing field. I hate the pain it causes everyone involved and that there is absolutely nowhere to hide from its darkness.

I only hate it so much, though, because I can see the goodness that rests in the evil's shadows. I can see your pretty smile and the nights we got way too drunk to know why we even loved each other in the first place...but we did. I can recognize long mornings on the couch, countless hours spent doing nothing and many weekends that motivated me through horrible, hopeless weeks. And I can see a smiling little girl with bouncing, curly blonde hair running and jumping into your arms. All this makes the sadness so much more sharp, but so worthwhile. It makes life and the current moment so much more real and authentic. In this foxhole, where I sit attempting to shield myself from the pain of your illness, all that goodness helps me remember why I have fought—and continue to fight—the grief and sorrow that comes with this world, and specifically everything that has happened in the last year. It is why I still see hope for your life and the time any of us have left on this earth, which is fleeting and ever-precarious for us all.

My heart breaks every every single day for you. But on days like this—even as I literally sit here crying and hoping that no one walks into my office—I see enough beauty in the past and future to look forward to how our lives will unfold.

I struggle to donate money because I keep trying to quantify how much you are worth to me—how much finding a cure to this disease is worth to me. I will never be able to afford the amount, because when I try to set it, I always find the price you and every other victim has paid, and continues to pay, more valuable. It may sound like it, but it is not a copout—I simply hope that my small donations will gather along with other people's to create the resources necessary for doing research and meeting needs.

I will always love you, dear friend. No disease can take that away. I wrote a song for you when you were in the Mayo clinic. I'll sign off with the chorus:
I'm just hanging on
to the memories that live inside
that if we don't let 'em no one can ever find
Baby i'll sit and talk till dawn
tell you everything I can to help you hang on
while I just hang on
Your loving friend always,

Joe

. . .

Ovarian Cancer is an extremely deadly disease and relative to other cancers, sees little publicity, awareness and funding. Regardless, it is a very brutal reality to thousands of women, their families and friends.

If you'd like to make a donation to finding a cure and/or raising awareness for Ovarian Cancer please visit any of the following sites . . . any little bit helps:

Ovarian Cancer National Alliance at
http://www.ovariancancer.org/

Ovations for the Cure
http://www.ovationsforthecure.org/mission.php

John Hopkins Medical Institute
https://pathology2.jhu.edu/ovcagiving/donationform.cfm

"Get inspired by the power of hope...invest in the power of science!"