Dancing on the Edge

I got an e-mail from my college friend Monica last night. We were very close in college, but unfortunately don't keep close contact anymore. Monica is not addicted to Facebook like I am. We send Christmas letters and the occasional e-mail with big news. I'd sent one when I found out I was pregnant and a couple about Mom. It it feels strange, giving big bad news via mass e-mails or Facebook, but it really is easier. You can give the facts, making sure everyone gets the same details and it is much less emotionally wearing than calling or talking to everyone in person. Monica's responses to my e-mails were short, but heartfelt. She sent me a box of chocolates the week of Mom's funeral and Hope's birth. Monica lost her mom to cancer a couple years after we were out of college, maybe 10 years ago. She was married, but had no children. She now has a three year old boy and is due to have a little girl in August.

Monica sent a big e-mail yesterday. Her dad has prostate cancer. It does not appear to be curable, but she doesn't know how long. I wish I could go and sit with her. I wish I could clean her house and make her meals. I wish this yoke could be lifted from her shoulders, although I don't want more add more to my yoke! I did send her a supportive e-mail, telling her I would pray for her and her family and to take care of herself.

When I was in the midst of everything, I had several long talk with my minister, Steve. I adore him. He told me more than once that we are all living on the precipice between life and death, we just don't usually realize it. But it was out in the open with me, carrying Hope and losing my mother.

I saw an author on Oprah once, I think it was Isabel Allende. She talked about how closely related birth and death are to each other. The author had been in a room when a child was born and when her daughter died, and she said there was the same sacred stillness. That was a small part of why I so badly wanted to be with my mother when she left us. I clearly remember that sudden focus soon after my children were born, even in a busy ob room. I wanted to be there with my mom.

Hope is awake for more of the day now. I commented to Jim, it is the opposite of Mom. The last couple weeks, Mom spent more and more of the day asleep. I treasure that one of the last times she opened her eyes the day before she left us she gazed on my boys and they told her they loved her. I know Cali's husband was very frustrated that he was sleeping so much in his last days. He thought it was the morphine making him sleep so much, but the hospice nurse told him sleeping was part of the process.

I haven't told anyone about Monica's father. I handed the laptop to Jim so he could read her e-mail. I simply could not say the words aloud. I talk to a couple of my sisters daily and normally I would mention something like this to them. They've met Monica, but didn't really know her. I would tell myself I was telling them so they could pray for the family, which they would. But really it would be verbal rubber necking, sharing with them just so we could say wow! But I haven't told them, it is just too close.