The photo above is Emma, curled up on my Aunt’s lap in my father’s reclining armchair, taken in February of 2007. She’d come over with my Aunt Liz to stay with me and the girls to see how we were doing with all the stress and sadness of Dad’s illness. None of us knew at the time that Dad was only a couple of weeks from the end. It was simply a great comfort to see them and have them stay with us that evening.
In September, I met up with her at an uncle’s funeral. The last time I’d seen her was at my father’s funeral. “We have to stop meeting like this,” she said as she threw her arms around me. I wholeheartedly agreed. Our family has been through a lot of pain in the last few years with more unexpected losses and disappointments than any family should have to bear in such a short span of time. If that wasn’t enough, I found out last week that she has been diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.
I’ve already been dealing in an inordinate amount of anger since my uncle’s death two months ago. Some of that anger is leftover from my father’s illness. Compounded with this recent news, I’ve probably had enough anger over the last week to power a locomotive from coast to coast. Slowly, I’m letting go of it but it’s not easy. I just want her to get well, and I want my family to stop suffering.
So here’s to hope in successful treatments, a full recovery and the idea that some good news is coming our way soon. We could use some good news. Man, could we really use some of that.
