Thoughts on our own mortality

It appears to be true that we really don't GET that we are going to die. I remember as as teenager thinking that even though adults told us that unprotected sex could result in pregnancy, none of my peers really thought it would happen to us. Me included. And yet we did get pregnant and it shouldn't have been a surprise.....but it was.

Death is the same way. At some level, we vaguely waft around that it's true and yet it never truly seems REAL. In 2005, my mother by marriage Joan, sister Margi and I drove dad (Jack) to Boston for evaluation after his liver cancer was discovered. Mind you, this was after a routine gall bladder surgery where the surgeon noted that the "liver looked funny as he operated on the gall bladder." Funny liver= carcinoma of the liver. Not so funny. Cholangiocarcinoma. This comes from food or water-borne parasite worms such as opisthorchis viverrini - including fluke worms - which reside in the skin of freshwater fish mostly found in northeastern Thailand. HELLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO??? Did Jack go to Thailnad? i think not. Whatever killed my father was undoubtedly a fluke but a fluke worm? I don't believe so.

Which brings me to timing. For a couple of years before he died, Jack would tell me that he was going to die about the same time as his father. I remember arguing incessantly that because his father had died at 73, that had NOTHING to do when he would expire. His mom had gone at 84. I suggested to him that he take an average if need be, rather than refer to his father's record. He was adamant that it had a bearing. So as his children planned his 75 birthday party at Fort Willliam Henry, he instead checked out at 74 years plus a little. Stinks! It was almost as if he had to PROVE himself RIGHT and leave on his schedule.

Which brings me to John. Did John KNOW that he had made some weird prebirth agreement to check out on the completion of a 12 year cycle at 48 years old or what? It sure seemed to me that he desperately wanted to live and he put every effort into trying any treatment the medical community (the white suits) had to offer. He wasn't flippant or irreverent. He followed the rules. He quit smoking....he worked at survival and yet, here we are Sept 2009 and it wasn't enough.

Can I tell you how much the reality of where we are today sucks? Go figure........