As fair warning...and I am always doing my best to be fair...this won't have any pictures. It was an incredibly fucked up-ish kind of day, and I need to unload my brain a bit.
I stayed up late studying last night. I had initially planned on waking up at 8, going for a run, coming back to study some more, and then going to class. But when my alarm went off, every part of my body unanimously decided "fuck that idea. Sleep some more instead!" So that's exactly what I did. Aside from one sad dream and one truly bizarre one, it was fairly glorious. I woke up at 11:00 to my phone ringing. Very persistently, I felt. It was my dad, calling to tell me that my uncle Paul had been put back in the hospital a few days ago, and he hadn't called me because he wanted to wait and see what was going on.
He knows what's going on now.
My uncle has a very rare, very awful kind of lymphoma. I can't recall the name of it. At any rate, he's been put back in the hospital because he has a lung infection and a spleen infection. My uncle has lost probably 80 pounds going through all of his treatment, and my dad says that his spleen infection is so bad that he has a very pronounced bubble on his thin frame, because his spleen is so swollen and there's nothing there to hide the bulge.
He's not fighting either of these infections off. So, they're putting him into hospice. The doctors told my dad (he's been in the hospital with Paul for the last couple of days) that his prognosis is incredibly grim. Best case scenario, he doesn't make Halloween. Worst case scenario, any day could be his last. They offered Paul a sort of ditch effort, hail Mary treatment that could give him an extra month, but he'd be even more sick than he already is. My dad said Paul doesn't want to take that. I told my dad that I understand that; If I had a matter of weeks to live, I'd want to spend them feeling as good as possible. This didn't make my dad happy. He said Paul feels the same way, but he (he being my dad) doesn't like it. Nobody else does, either. I could tell by the somber tone in my dad's voice, and the slight timbre, that he was very emotional, and now wasn't the time for a conversation on why my dad wanting to urge Paul to take the treatment was selfish and wildly ridiculous. So I kept my mouth shut. My dad went on to tell me that I should call my uncle and tell him my prayers are with him. I don't know what possessed me to respond in this manner, but I told him that I'd happily call Paul, but I wasn't going to tell him anything about prayers, because I don't pray, and it wouldn't do any fucking good, and it's stupid, trivial false comfort. My dad said that Paul doesn't believe in prayer, either. There was so much disdain in his voice, and he very quickly said he had to go. So I told him I'd call Paul in a few days, after he's had some time to rest.
I've been thinking about this all day. Not so much the very real notion that my uncle will be dead in a matter of months...I've been rattling that about for the last year (he was diagnosed almost a year to the day with this lymphoma, and they offered up a best case life expectancy of a year and a half), and I've been waiting for the phone call saying he's on his death bed. Which, I suppose, came today. So I'm waiting for that no longer.
No, what I was thinking about was having little to no faith and being that close to death. My uncle and I are the only ones on my dad's side of the family that aren't devout Catholics. My uncle has always been sort of an outsider with my family because of that. The older I've gotten, the more fringe I've become, as well. But I was sitting outside after my run tonight (I didn't flake out on it entirely! And I kicked ass, too. Average over three miles was 7:29. Not too shabby!) and thinking about what I'd say to my uncle. And I felt guilty for wanting to ask him, "Now that you're facing death in a far more real capacity than I have to, how does it feel to stare it in the face without a God to believe in and comfort you?"
It sounds so condescending. Without proper context, the question has a thick slime of holier-than-thou, don't-you-wish-you-believed-now dripping off of every single word. But it's a legitimate question, and one that I really would like to ask him.
In my own way, I've kind of faced m own mortality. Two rounds, going on three, with cervical cancer, and this new breast cancer scare, I think about dying more than I want to. But it's not immediate. Not yet. I know I'm going to die. I don't know when, or what will actually get me. I know it's coming, however. And it doesn't scare me. At this point in my life, I feel like death is going to be nothing. It will just be something I do, and I won't know the difference afterward. If I'm wrong, I'll find out when the time comes. But if I'm right, then it doesn't matter one bit. I could die tomorrow and I wouldn't know.
My uncle has been writing short stories. He's sent them to me, and I've never known how to respond, because I don't enjoy the way they're written. I feel like I should suck it up and send him some positive critiques, even if I'm maybe mucking the opinion a bit by saying I loved it. This has also been something I've been thinking about all day. I've never been one for lying. There's no point to it. I've always been proud of my willingness to be honest, even when it hurts me more than the person I'm being honest with (and make no mistake, that's a thing). But I feel like I should make an exception for my uncle. He's a good guy, and I'd like to do something that would make him happy before he passes away. He loves sharing his stories with people. The least I can do is send him an email or ten back in response to his stories saying, "Hey! These were great! You know what? Tweak these tiny things and it's completely amazing.". There is absolutely no harm in that.
I think I'm going to do that. It makes me so sad that I can't be there with my family right now, because I know they're all hurting over Paul. And it makes me even more sad that I can't sit and talk with my uncle about his possible fears about dying without the turn-to-god stuff I know my family is giving him.
There's that nagging bit at the back of my brain that says if only I could talk to Paul, I'd be able to provide a small amount of solace. That even though he's dying, we could share in cancer-y commonalities, and laugh at the idea of death, and talk about how it's almost exciting to be dying, because either you'll know you were wrong about God, or you'll know nothing and it won't matter. The ultimate question answered.
I suppose everybody thinks they're the one person who could make that difference. There's always a story, or a person, that you wish you had maybe done more, or said more, or asked more questions, or done something, anything other than what you did, before they died. Or before they left forever. Or before they took a turn for the worst. Whatever it is. We all have it, or we're living that scenario now, or it's coming. These awful, scary, sobering situations meet with us all. And if they don't, you're not doing life correctly.
I've been wondering about the things that matter this evening. I finished studying, fixed myself a light drink, and I've been staring into space, making lists of the things and people that matter, and the things and people that don't. I have a lot of bullshit to sort out and throw away. I simply don't need those things or people any longer. I recognize the value they brought to the table, and I appreciate the things I've learned, and how I've grown as a person. But keeping a textbook from middle school doesn't do anything but take up space that would be better served with something more useful and pertinent now.
So I'm cleaning out my life. Maybe it sounds cutthroat and overly simplistic, but I simply don't have the time for people that don't really value me. They do nothing but keep me stagnant and wistful. In the last two months alone I've changed so much and propelled myself forward so far that I can't see where I initially started. And I love this. I will always, always value the people who've helped me get to where I am, but saying that you need everybody in your life around forever is foolish and overly-sentimental. There's no sadness in moving forward and leaving people behind if it's ultimately better for you.
This is what evaluating my uncle's prognosis is helping me see. I'm sad about the idea of not having him here anymore. He's a wonderful man. But, however narcissistic and evil this may sound, I don't know if I'd be able to recognize how much dead weight I've been lugging around if it weren't for the immediacy of his pending death. And I'm packing some hefty baggage.
So, I'm going to work on letting go.
Right after I email my uncle.
