Your Dying Spouse 459 - Blood And Taxes {Andrew - FMF}

Barb finished her brother's taxes - he's starting a business in Indiana - as she's exhausted, so she asked me to step back in.

She's also exhausted because I had a bit of a bleeding problem yesterday, and...well, if you remember Eddie Murphy in Daddy Day Care...the "I missed!" scene...

And before you ask, yes, I do think pretty much everything's a joke.

So this will be short; pain is like something out of a horror movie, and there's absolutely no way to relieve it. It's grotesque, and sometimes (this is new) I wish it would just end. But each time I fall I rise, and God apparently still has things for me to do. (For those dropping in for the first time, pancreatic cancer and, apparently, non-H lymphoma. Lymph nodes under the arms are awful, and I'm doing a Moses, supported by Sylvia and Ladron rather than Aaron and Hur.)

Barb suggested I talk about how I felt about her doing her brother's taxes...glad for her involvement and family, or in a way sad, seeing life sailing by while I wait on an island of pain for the rising tide to drown me?

Easy. Glad, not sad. Barb needs a life that reaches into her future, and it's a future I won't share. She needs family, and involvement. I love her, and want that for her, and it has to be ongoing. She can't just begin that kind of thing after I die; she has to be doing it now, so there is a support system, and a community of which she is already a part.

No reason for sadness; I am so far past being taken up in the tragedy of the thing. Each moment, painful as it may be, and bloody, is still a gift from God. When I walk outside, I know that I may collapse and die, so I savour the sunshine. I love my life more now than ever.

And I'm so impressed with the way Barb handled the taxes!

I'm trying to get her to find sponsorship to train for and then go on a guided expedition to Everest. It's expensive and physically challenging...but if she can do Indiana business taxes, that lady can do ANYTHING.

It'll take a couple of years; and when I am like a golden cloud upon the wind, I shall be waiting for her at the summit.

Music from The Dirges, with Better Days. If you want to know me, please listen to the song. I dare you not to dance!

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in. 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 in a few days!

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 458 - Surely?

If you're interested, you can find Andrew's books on Amazon.

Your Dying Spouse 457 - I Shall Be Released, But Not Yet

Andrew here...yesterday Barb said that I am still alive because I'm too stubborn to die.

True, but not the whole truth. There's also love.

It's the love that I carry within me, for my wife and for our dogs. I don't want to leave them while I can still be useful.

And it's the love that I receive, from this community, and from the blog communities of Books and Such, the Steve Laube Agency, Messy Marriage, and many more.

I'm carried by love atop the waves of a blood-dimmed sea, under a darkening sky that will not see another dawn.

And I go on.

Held by the strength of others, because mine is gone.

And I am grateful.

So let's listen to The Band, and I Shall Be Released, eh? (The Five Minute riay keyword is release...but you probably knew that, eh?)

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me.

I'm not sure when or if I'll be back. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in. 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 in a few days!

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 456 - Released To Dance

Andrew here, again cannibalizing previous blog comments to participate in Five Minute Friday, whose keyword this week is release.

This originally appeared as a comment I left on the Steve Laube Literary Agency Blog Creative Boundaries which appeared on April 3, 2018. (There are a couple of additions.)

There are some good and worthwhile things that are questionable for publication, too – because, well, who would really understand, and the reading could have the opposite effect to that which was intended.

I’ve been urged to write about my trip to death’s door; I’ve done so on my blog, but that’s a collection of life-snippets, really, with some advice for patients and caregivers that I hope is useful.

But a book? That has to cut to the meaning with the graceful Hail Mary arc of a pass into the end zone, and how can I really say that pancreatic cancer is the best worst thing that’s ever happened to me?

How can I say that the agony (and yes, it is, even as I write) has brightened my days with beauty appreciated for itself, and not for how it makes me feel?

How can I say that life is not a duality of Good Things and Horrible Things, writ boldly on opposite sides of a strip of paper whose ends are joined into a ring? Good outside, Bad inside!

I can’t, because life and death is about cutting the ring, and giving it a half-twist and taping the ends back together.

Now trace your finger over the Good, and suddenly you’ll find you’re seamlessly into the Horrible…and then, if you keep moving, back into the Good again.

You’ve created a Moebius Strip, a two-dimensional object with only one surface, and you can dive through that ring to freedom.

You've been released to dance through the light and the shade

But how can I even begin to say this?

You’ld think me half mad.

But being wholly mad, strength permitting, I'll write it.

And who better to supply the music than Abba, with Dancing Queen?

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me.

I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in. I'm really not doing well at all. I'll still post when I can. But writing's hard.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback in a few days!

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 455 - Our Thomas Self {FMF}

Our Thomas Self...

There is little, biblically, about Apostle Thomas.  The most easily quoted passages are have to do with Thomas' need to touch Jesus, to have tangible evidence that Jesus was alive. (John 20:24).  I have heard these passages throughout my life, and they struck a chord that made me who I am.  I actually conceive Thomas more as a studious apostle, a dedicated apostle,  an inquistitive apostle, mixed with some doubt.

Thomas' question to Jesus at the Passover meal gives us a glimpse into his character.

John 14:5 - Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Thomas was a student of Jesus,  that's what it meant to follow a Rabbi. A student was to be so immersed in the rabbi's theology,  behavior,  and idiosyncrasies that the disciple could repeat them precisely.  Thomas question was a natural one,  not a spiritual one.   Jesus knew Thomas well, they have ate,  travelled, fellowshipped, and slept the same daily life for three years.

Jesus was not surprised by Thomas' question at Passover,  nor was Jesus surprised at Thomas' need for tangibility after His Resurrection.   When you think about it,  all the apostles received tangible evidence that Jesus was alive. Thomas was more vocal about his need.

We are all Thomas in life.  Being an introvert, I question my ability to do any new activity and usually am fearful to the point of talking myself out of it easily.   Andrew refuses to let me get by with such behavior.   I drove a manual transmission for over a decade,  not because I wanted to learn how but because Andrew insisted I learn how to get over my fear.   I know how to shift a motorcycle but was scared to try a larger vehicle.  So scared that I sweating & got tunnel vision.  I learned with the compassionate training of Andrew.  The only thing I could not completely master was steep hills. (But neither could Andrew, with any consistency!)

My point: We all have "doubts", fears,  self-talk that holds us back from our maximum potential.   Sometimes we have a savior (I don't mean this sacrilegiously) that comes along and provides us tangible resources to overcome, to provide the missing information to overcome, to provide the training to overcome, or the inspiration to overcome, to lift us up beyond our lower expectations to overcome.

Sometimes we are the savior for someone else. In either case we are called to be His hands, His feet,  His eye of compassion, His giving of inspiration and hope.

Yes we are all Thomas, the faithful follower doing everything in his power to replicate his Rabbi's every move.

Music is from Amy Grant, with My Father's Eyes.

If you're interested, you can find Andrew's books on Amazon.

Your Dying Spouse 454 - Embrace It

Andrew here, for something really short. It hurts too much to do more.

Embrace your pain. Hold it close, and you will feel the still-strong arms of the broken and bloodied Jesus holding you right back.

And together, you and He can ascend the Via Dolorosa. Supporting each other.

You may be walking to your death, as I am.

But you're not walking alone.

Music is from the Foo Fighters, with Walk from the movie Thor.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me.

I'm not sure when or if I'll be back. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in. 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 in a few days!

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 453 - Easter Reflections

This originally appeared as a comment written by Andrew on the Steve Laube Literary Agency blog, on April 1, 2018.