Your Dying Spouse 583 - This Can't Be Right

Days that worst piles on worse, and it's like I'm drowning. It hurts too much, and each cough turns into something far, far worse.

Tunours in the lungs, like rocks, and I can't breathe around them.

Courage seems a luxury.

Tears seem irrelevant.

But I don't need my own courage; God lends me His.

And there's no room for tears, because there is too much grace and laughter here.

I think there must be some mistake;

dear God, this can't be right!

How on earth did cancer take

my my life, my hope, my light?

It must surely be a glitch,

an error 403,

and there must be a reset switch

operated by my plea.

"No," says God, "this is the plan

with which I'veen trusted you,

for life has made you understand

how to see it through."

I hate to hear what I'd suspected

but I'll do what is expected.

Although I am writing this on a Wednesday, every day is Manic Monday.

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, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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 582 - Read To Live

The following sonnet was written in response to Bob Hostetler's question 'Do you plan your reading?', posted on the Steve Laube Agency blog on December 19, 2018

My reading is today informed
by fell circumstance, despair,

and by the demons that have swarmed

my life; they’re everywhere.

I read to keep my pecker up;

I read to save my soul;

I read so I may daily sup

on the dreams that keep me whole.

My pancreas and lungs are full

of dire malignancy;

but my heart will ride the wild maned-bull

and when the bell rings, I’ll be free.

So in the bloody dawn, my friends, watch this flag unfurl;

pancreatic cancer, on hearing my name, will cry like a little girl.

(And yes, to the British-educated, ‘pecker’ shall always be a colloquialism for ‘courage’.)

Over to Queen, with We Are The Champions.

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, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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 581 - Barbara, I Love You! {FMF}

On this Valentine's Day, I could not face my own death in better company.

Pain today has been beyond all rational understanding, but I am nonetheless the luckiest man alive.

What confidence remains in me, I draw from Barbara's strength. (Confident is this week's Five Minute Friday word-prompt.)

In some sweet place ere hell came down

to mutilate and make of life

a scourging and a thorny crown,

I courted me a wife.

We met upon the Internet

and love grew from afar

so that when we finally met

I knew I’d found my Star.

Romance was never in my blood

and ‘fluttery’? Not really,

but for Barb there came a flood

of heart-tide…oh so freely!

Darling, in these days of wracking pain

your love sustains; I’d do it all again.

Music from The Beatles, with Here, There, and Everywhere.

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, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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 580 - When A Caregiver Feels Helpless

There's an interesting compare-and-contrast going on here, right now.

A very dear friend of ours in in hospital, and has been since early December; her ailment has been very hard to track down, much the less treat, but there is hope that she will be going home in a couple of weeks.

Barb has been spending almost all her free time with our friend (and her husband), providing moral support, physical help when the nursing staff's otherwise engaged, and making sure that nothing medically important is missed. (And yes, I have encouraged this; I'm OK on my own through the day, and these folks really need her.)

And while it's exhausting, Barb inicated that it's actually easier than spening time with me, because her friend is not in a lot of pain; some discomfort and frustration, yes, but nothing like that which she has to witness in my company.

There, she's useful; she can provide practical help (like rearranging the room for feasible lavatory acces while the nursing staff is too busy). Here, Barb feels helpless, and there's really no worse experience under these circumstances.

I'm not sure what the moral is here, except maybe that having to watch omeone in constant severe pain really sucks.

But maybe there's something else, that I need to be cognizant of how hard it is for Barb to see me hurting. Not that I should hide the pain, which would be quite impossible, but that I need to understand the effect on her heart, and hold her in both prayer and sympathy.

Here's a sonnet that may be appropriate:

My wife will spend Valentine’s Day

at work and with a friend

in hospital, who sees no way

that her life will ever mend.

She’ll arrive home at ten 

exhausted and in pain, 

eat and sleep and rise and then 

do it all again. 

We are not made for celebration 

nor for mere romance 

our lives are meant for consecration 

by Jesus, Lord Of The Dance. 

For love of us, in Passion grim, 

He asks that we might live for Him.

Music from The Hollies, with He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.

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, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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 579 - Morning Of Decision

This morning I struggled between consciousness and death, trying to find my way back to this life, the life I'm not ready to leave.

I wa caught between the here and now, and the doorway to Heaven. I couldn't tell which was which.

There's work to do here. I fought my way out of Heaven,more times than I can now count.

On coming back, I did the best I could, to be of service to Barb and the dogs.

Personal goals are no longer the Grail.

Duty is all.

Heaven can wait.

Cancer is my deadly foe,

offering no quarter.

He wants all I am and know

to add unto the slaughter.

He thinks he'll one day win

because the flesh has limits,

and he's been on as did begin,

counting down the minutes.

My body is not made of steel,

but my heart is more,

and he won't see me kneel

before him on that fatal shore.

Hearken, death, for when we're through,

me and God are burying YOU.

Music from the Alan Parsons Project, with Closer To Heaven.

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, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.