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.