Your Dying Spouse 76 - Heart Like Bacon {FMF}

Time for Five Minute Friday, the timed keyword-driven writing challenge hosted by the inimitable Kate Motaung. (We're also linked to Still Saturday. Wedded Wednesday, and Weekend Whispers.)

This weeks' word is BACON.

Execute.

When someone gets in the way of a flamethower, they're called crispy critters, or bacon.

The last couple of weeks, I walked into a spiritual flamethrower, and I'm fried.

A few hours after writing last weeks FMF post, I stopped breathing for a bit. It was terrifying; I was fully aware of what was happening.

Sylvia, the canine 'face; of this blog, came to the rescue, jumping up and down on my chest and yelling in my face. Canine CPR, and it worked. I'm shaky, but I'm still here.

That was the easy bit.

There was a very personal hit as well, from someone quite close; a very important relationship changed irrevocably (though it will continue), and I was left holding and empty box of future, and memories now condemned.

You're terminally ill, and some things you simply don't expect.

I walked outside after the moment of knowing, and while the sun was still shining, everything had dimmed. I was in the depths of a despair I have never known.

And I felt...taller.

In the dread transcendence, there was a challenge.

I could surrender to sorrow and bitterness, or I could play the man. I could rail against fate, or I could wear the stiff upper lip of my forefathers, and carry on with my duties with a smile and a courteous mien.

It doesn't matter that your insides have been torched. What you give the world is everything.

This is a process, and one I certainly would not have chosen...but in its arrival, I will, in every moment, try to act as a gentleman should, with forthright good humour, and the mildness demanded by good manners.

My morale is at the lowest point it has ever been; no matter. What matter now, and what vitally matters, is what I choose to do in every moment.

And I choose to play the man. To the end; not the bitter end, not the glorious end, but simply to the end.

Endex.

I ask you patience...I truly )especially now!) appreciate your comments, but I'm finding it difficult to answer quickly, and I have not visited as many of you as I would have liked. Please forgive that omission; I care about you guys, and I am doing the best I can.