Your Dying Spouse 480 - This Is Where I Live {FMF}

This was originally written as something very different, a rather elegiac meditation on the broken dreams that surround one at the end of life.

A bit wistful, a bit hopeful, and a lot resigned and accepting.

And then...there was this conversation:

Me: "It's getting hard to see a version of this where I come out alive."
Reply: "That's because there isn't any."

Over there, red flag.

Over here, bull. Really pissed-off bull.

I don't do resigned. I've got pancreatic cancer and am highly symptomatic for non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Pain's overwhelming (abdomen and chest and lymph nodes in the groin) and prognosis is bleak but that's no reason to quit.

The odds are against me. Fine, that means a bigger Vegas payout when I win.

The cost in pain is too high. As my dear wife has told me, pain is weakness being forced from the body, and blood makes the grass grow green.

You're too weak now, to fight. So I get stronger. I have a chinning bar, and I can do pushups. Lots of chin-ups, lots of pushups. With each arm, individually.

Three near-death events in a three week period...God's calling you home. He's going to have to wait. I'm BUSY.

Let this life go, and look to Heaven! Heaven can wait. This, supporting Barb and the dogs, and giving encouragement to my friends, THIS is my post. I'm not leaving. How can I be fit for Heaven if I didn't give every last measure of devotion here?

You can't win. This is the bourn from beyond which there is no return.

Watch Me.

One of the dreams about which I'd written in that 'other' post as to visit my favourite place, Chicago, the Emerald City (and setting for my novel Emerald Isle) with Barbara.

We'll get there. Don't know how. But I know we will.

Appropriately, here's Aliotta, Haynes, and Jeremiah with their lovely and magical Lake Shore Drive. The phrase 'LSD' isn't a drug reference; Lake Shore Drive was LSD long before lysergic acid was formulated.

And check out the hair and moustaches on these guys!

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 479 - Not Very Good At Sad

They say I'm supposed to be depressed, and moving toward having heaven on my mind...transitioning the last two stages of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' 'stages of dying'.

I'm supposed to be sad that there won't be a 'me' in my world, sometime soon.

Everything hurts, food doesn't taste right (or, often, stay down), and I can't draw a full breath.

I'm supposed to...aw, heck. I've got to stop. Can't keep a straight face.

I'm a total flop at being depressed. I just can't hang on to a blue mood without thinking of a really stupid joke.

Like this...What was Jesus' signature karate move?

Lamb chops!

Or...if Protestants didn't show up until Martin Luther and the Reformation, how could John have been a Baptist?

And it's good to know that Jesus and the Apostles had a big hairy dog following them around, for who hasn't heard of St. John's Newfoundland?

Or...what music did God play when Adam and Eve had a kid?

This.

Geddit? (I told Barb that last one when she came home from work yesterday, and she said, "I'll bet it took you all day to think of that.")

Now, this all may be a character flaw...people around me who are genuinely sad see me as a bit unsympathetic, a bit heartless toward their sorrow.

I should deny that, and come up with a well-reasoned explanation as to why humour is the best bulwark against sorrow, and why...

Wait, want to hear another one?

Why did the cannibal work so hard?

He wanted to get ahead.

I sure hope God's got a sense of humour. Otherwise, I'm toast.

Burnt toast.

And if I'm bad at being depressed, I'm a total fail at being resigned, but more of that anon.

Over to Daniel Boone with Beautiful Sunday. Remember?

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 478 - Gonna Fly Now

The weekend from hell, uncontrolled pain and other stuff.

Only music today.

I ain't done yet.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 477 - My Reason To Live {FMF}

(A quick note - if you've tried to leave comments here and failed, please try again - we've changed the settings.)

It's getting ugly.

Literally...I've got these big nasty sellings where the lymph nodes live, along the side of my ribcage under my arms...and in the abdomen, here the pancreas lurks. And starting up on the neck. Not a Kodak moment.

Yuck. And they really, really hurt. I'm constantly doing a Moses, arms outstretched, to avoid contact-pain. Aaron and Hur go by the names Ladron and Sylvia, keeping the arms up.

It's been suggested to me by many who sincerely love me that it's time to let go - to fall away into Jesus' arms, and to let the pain end.

It's even been suggested that I consider assisted suicide - legal in my state. Pain is bad and fixin' to get worse. A LOT worse.

Why not just skip it? I mean, three near-death events in three weeks, and it does look like God is calling me home.

Perhaps He is, and perhaps I'm a fool for not answering His call, but...

...I have promises to keep,

and miles to go before I sleep...

I promised to do my best in this life, and even though the scope of my abilities is drastically reduced, I can still do something.

I can keep writing this blog, to witness to the fact that even in pain and humiliation, we can choose to make our lives worthwhile.

I can encourage friends I'll never meet in this life not to give up on their dreams, that their dreams are God-given and important to Him. Dreams make a difference.

I can pray for my wife and for our friends and for those people for whom a single prayer can to the balance for hope.

I can say a kind word, and then say another one. I have to pause for breath between each word, yeah. But a pause is not an end. (And pause is the Five Minute Friday prompt this week.)

I can share my blessings, as long as I have one breath left to give.

To. Give.

And so, over to Laura Story, with Blessings.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And Marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 476 - They Come By Night

I as hoping to skate through this part, but God had other plans.

I get to do my end-of-life review through dreams. It's not fun.

Sleep comes very hard; there is no position I can tolerate for more than a few minutes, so about 10-15 minutes of a restless doze is all I get at one time, and it's enough, unfortunately, for what dreams may come. (Remember the movie of that name?)

And come they do. I am being led through my past, in no particular chronology, to see here I might have done better. Waking comes with a sense of loss, and a strong sense of failure, most of the time.

Not always. Sometimes I get to dream about flying. Those are good.

I've never been a believer in 'dream interpretation', and I'm still not convinced in hidden meanings.

It's more God saying, "Look, boyo, this is where you really screwed up, and I need you to focus. Not to do better, but to understand that self-satisfaction isn't something you can carry into Heaven."

It's hard, but I have to believe He's right. I'm afraid to sleep, because what I find in dreams will be worse than the constant pain, but no one ever said that the road to heaven was easy.

I'll face the demons. He's at my side.

God's a pretty good bodyguard.

Music from Heart, with These Dreams.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And Marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.