Family… cancer
Family… you all know them. Brothers, Sisters, Moms, Dads, Aunts, Uncles, cousins and your own children. Many times you include your Mother-in-law, and Father-in-law and Brothers and Sisters in laws.
You know there are always the stories of how people really don’t get along with, or even hate their In-Laws, or have bad things to say about relatives. I’ll say that my Mother-in-Law was an angel with devil horns. She was sweet, but was always doing something mischievous - for fun, usually to me. We miss her very much, she passed away at about the age of 68.
But let me ask you something?
Have any of you ever lost someone close to you due to cancer, or some other sinister disease? Someone young? Someone who has not yet lived that ‘full life’?
I’ve lost two people very close to me. In 1978 just a bit more than a month before our first child was born, my mother, Aubra Jean Donaldson, died from cancer. She was 42 years old. When I’d left home, I didn’t get many chances to talk to her after I’d entered the military. We lost her before she got to meet her first grandchild. And I missed many an opportunity to tell her, “Mom, I love you”. Now I can’t tell her.
Many years later, one of our babies was born and there were a lot of complications to the birth ending in an emergency cesarean birth. That baby, Amanda Jean Donaldson (Jean after my mother) had to undergo surgery for a genetic defect which had also afflicted some of our other children. Essentially, the surgeons screwed up. Amanda Jean died six days after she was born, because the blood supply to her intestines was cut off ‘accidentally’. I should have sued the government (military hospital) but in our grief, we did nothing. I said “Good bye” at a funeral where a hundred military personnel, friends and family attended. I didn’t get to watch her grow up with her brothers and sisters. I didn’t get to be “Daddy” for more than a few hours at best to her.
My mom was diagnosed with cancer roughly five years before she died. They tried to get it, but, the doctors failed. Within five years, all the treatments that they gave my mom ended because the medicine failed.
A couple of weeks back, I was told by my sister that she had something…. and now, we have found out that it is cancer. Breast cancer.
Things have moved fast since then. They have tried to remove it, and now are unsure if they got it all.
In a few days she goes in for an MRI, which will hopefully tell them if they got it all or not. Then they go from there, which will include more surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments.
So, I think you should all call your family members, and hug those close to us and tell them what they mean to us. Life is short, ladies and gentlemen. Make the best of it, and tell those around you how much you care about them. Go to those weddings, and kids’ birthday parties, and even if you can’t stand the noise, enjoy yourself — and above all, talk to your family, relatives. Learn what you can of them, even if it is bad. Hell, sit down and draw up a family tree for yourself so you can trace your roots back. If nothing else, pass on what you can to your children so THAT THEY will know something about their origins. Even if those origins stem from you, at least get it started.
If you don’t, then one day, one of those folks may be gone from your life and you’ll not get the chance again.
Rick
