Three Deaths

I hate everything today.

The past 2 to 3 weeks has culminated in a series of events that have put me over the edge. I am angry, restless, tired and bitter. I want destroy everything. I would say i just don’t care anymore. But it’s actually the opposite. I care so much that I just want to turn it off and make it stop.

Event #1) An old friend from high school had asked me to donate some of my hand made jewelry items to a fund raising event she was doing for her mom. Her mother had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She was mid chemo. The bills were too much and she needed help. So a ziti dinner with an auction was created. We talked back and forth. I did my best to give her advice to help her through the experience. I donated a bunch of items and sent gifts for both her and her mother to keep. I followed up with her often to see how her mom was holding up. Her Mom didn’t make it through treatment and passed away. I missed the wake due to an event I was suppose to be vending at. I wasn’t part of the process or anything but it still saddened me to hear. I still haven’t reached out to my friend privately.

Event #2) A few days later Robin Williams killed himself. Normally celebrity deaths don’t mean much to me. Usually an Oh really, that’s too bad. Then life goes on. This one struck me. When I was a kid growing up, my mom was a bipolar (manic) depressive. It was a struggle. She was a wreck more often then not. I was a big fan of escapism. I watched tv, hid out up in my room. I lost myself in music and comedy. Especially stand up comedy. Even from about age 7 my Mom would allow to watch things that were rated R. Robin Williams was my very favorite.I use to do his routines on the playground. He was very public about his manic episodes. It gave me hope. He gave me hope. His loss felt unreal and tremendous. Someone I so looked up to had just thrown in the towel. What the fuck man. I feel stupid even saying it. I felt stupid for mourning it. I never thought I could be so effected by someone I did not know personally. But I was and still am. It was like losing a hero. I don’t know why I said like – it WAS losing a hero.

Event #3) Back in June two of my cousins graduated from college. We had a picnic to celebrate. Their maternal grandmother was there. She was at many of our family events. Even though their Mom and Dad had divorced Grama Jane always came to our events and stayed close with my uncle. She always felt like her daughter had wronged him.Their relationship stayed in tact despite the divorce. At this picnic she asked me questions about my Cancer, chemo and radiation. She told me she was sick. She hadn’t told anyone else yet, and wasn’t sure if she wanted to. She said it made just make her daughters fight. That she didn’t think those treatments would be options for her. If I were her, and I thought I could pass away, what would I do? I thought for a few minutes and gave her my most honest answers. I said in my experience, sometimes people fear what they don’t understand. When you say I am sick, or I have Cancer, sometimes people retreat. They think about their own mortality and freak out. On a few occasions you will find wonderful folks who do think of you first. I told her she should go out and live. Do all the things she wants to do with her time left. Celebrate every minute. And FIGHT! Fight like a mother fucker. Don’t take no as an answer. Look into other doctors. Other therapies. But as far as telling her family, kids, etc. I told her that is her choice. If she thinks it will give her more grief then good, then go out the way SHE wanted to. She told me there was a will, that she just didn’t know where it was. That she planned on spending her last days doing all the legalities. I told her if that isn’t how she wanted it to end, don’t do it that way. Please go and enjoy every moment you have left. I literally said let someone else deal with that. Just take care of yourself and live.

I have serious guilt over what I said. I didn’t tell anyone what I knew at her request. Even though the whole way home I thought to myself, I should call my Uncle and tell him. I didn’t. I rationalized it as it’s her choice, not mine.

On Monday of last week my cousins called me from the airport in NYC saying they were stuck there. They flew in with no plan. It was 6 am. I happened to wake up and see the message. I scrambled to get some cash together, fought with The Smoker to wake up and drive. We zoomed through commuter traffic, picked them up and brought them to the hospital. Five hours later Grama Jane died. 

I was the only one from my mothers side of the family besides my cousins that showed up to her memorial service. My heart was heavy. I quickly learned that NO ONE knew she was that sick. NO ONE. Except me. A week ago she told everyone she had a few weeks left, then it became she has 72 hours left. Then she was just gone. She never got the Will or insurance stuff together. No one knew why she was so stubborn and didn’t say or do anything more then she did…. I knew why.

Yesterday I had a dinner for my family. An impromptu goodbye party for my cousins. Low key and fun. Pizza, wine, video games for the kids. More people then i expected showed up. My cousin Dan started talking about her Grama’s passing. I started to tell her that she was asking me about Cancer therapies back at the end of June. I didn’t tell her the full extent of the conversation. Just made mention. She burst into tears and said that she was so angry. I panicked. I don’t know why i had even opened my mouth so soon after the passing of G.J.. Dan said why was she so stubborn! That means she knew she was sick! She fucking knew and she didn’t tell anybody! I would have come home sooner! I would have spent more time with her! I am so mad at her! I immediately shut my mouth. Saying more would have only caused her more pain. I apologized over and over.

Dan left last night. Today I have spent all day with my heart heavier then ever. I have such guilt. Guilt for not speaking up as soon as I knew. Guilt for still being alive. Guilt for surviving. Guilt for not doing more for Grama Jane. I had her contact info. I should have called or emailed SOMETHING to check in!

All of these events have just rocked me. I am a grumpy angry mess. And I hate myself even more for knowing how much pain my cousins are in and that I could have eased it. Instead I made it worse. 

Ever since my own Cancer, I have felt like this weird messenger to other Cancer patients. I meet people and they tell me their secrets. They cry. In many cases I have never even met them before. I think getting to the brink of death and coming back sends people a message. Other Cancer patients and survivors maybe sometimes need that. But when they don’t survive. When they aren’t here anymore it fucking devistates me. All I can think is why am I still here and you aren’t. 

I can’t even talk about it anymore.

Calling All Angels

As the case may be, another boss / client of mine has nicknamed me ‘Angel’. One of the designers on a project of ours has also taken to calling me that. My boss / client always suggest to me that I should embrace this persona more. I tend to use wings a lot in my work. Something that comes out of me constantly since the Cancer 3 years ago. I always kind of fought it. You know me and my God shit. The ultimate love / hate relationship in my life.

This same boss / client, we’ll call her Madame Painterly, always refers to the work she thinks is important as my “angel duties.” She is also the one trying to help me get this studio space. The landlord loves my winged work as well, she talked me up quite a bit. He thinks they could use angel wings in the building.

Shy was here today. He’s been assisting me with my easier business stuff. Like today he was stamping tags for me onto scrapbook paper. I have known Shy for about a decade. We use to work together. At some point he got fired from that job and never fully recovered from that. His anxiety has been slowly getting worse over the years. I think one of the reasons why we’re still friends is because I understand his level of fear and anxiety.  He has hit a point in his life where things have to get better for him. He has succumb to starting therapy this past week. He also just started a new job at a thrift store last week. I also try and give him little bit of work when I can afford to pay him. Today he was here and talking about a sick relative he was very close to. He started to cry and just crumbled. I’ve never ever seen him like this. I literally tripped over my tray table and knocked the stamping stuff to the floor. I was so shocked I knocked over everything trying to get to him fast enough to hug him. He was just so broken.

Shy poured his heart out. He didn’t know what to do. He was afraid his relative would pass soon. His Mom showed up at his new job today at the thrift store and told him this relative had taken a turn for the worst. He was really scared. He talked more then I’d ever seen and just let it all out. When he was done The Smoker and The Ex were there. They were meeting us for dinner. We all went out. I pulled The Smoker aside and told him what had happened. That I felt like this was going to happen now.

We came back from dinner and just as we were finishing up Shy checked his phone and saw his mother had called. It happened. Poor Shy went into a nervous frenzy followed by more tears and just shock. I sat with him and cried with him. I got him water. I tried to feed him. I knew we just ate. The emotional eater in me was just like – oh right, food, he needs food. No food. He kept saying I don’t know what to do. The Smoker and The Ex went outside for a while. I guess they were shocked too. They hadn’t been there for the first part of this. They took a moment to deal before coming back in. The Ex had just lost is grandfather last month, so he was relating on a different level.

This is Shy’s first death. I had experienced my own first, last year with Pop, my step grandfather passing away. I took care of my sister during that time. The second she left my house I couldn’t dig myself out of that weird somber feeling where nothing feels right. Like living in a colorized film. You can cover it in color – but it’s still just black and white with shit all over it. I drank for 2 months straight and cried. The guilt of why didn’t I do more with them, the realization of they will never be there again, the frightening feeling of facing mortality and knowing one day you will die. Poor Shy.

This feels like my angel duties this week. I told him I’d leave my phone on for the next few days. As someone who’s sense of fear is already pretty heightened, I can’t imagine how much scarier this experience must be for him.

Every time I hear that someone has succumb to Cancer, I always have this heart sinking reaction. How? How is it that I am still here in this world and another soul is gone. Why did I live and they die?

When I was in the hospital getting treated, I use to see things. Things I could never explain. In my room, in the hallways. All around my floor for gynological Cancer. It always looked like children bathed in bright light. It use to make me cry.  When I tell people this story, I chalk it up to the different meds I was on at the time. I still think about it…

A Life Worth Wasting

Unless you have gone through something similar, for the most part no one knows what I deal with on a day to day basis. Not even The Smoker fully understands and he has been through most of this with me.

At this point I am living for the other people in my life. The infamous group “they” say that suicide is selfish. That it is not an option. You will go to Hell. The torment continues. Is that really true? Is it better that I go on suffering to make life easier for those that are too absorbed with their own pain to deal with someone else’s? 

I live day to day being just miserable. All of the medications I am suppose to be on I have no access to. I am part of the government system. I can’t afford them on my own. No insurance. Medicaid has run out. I don’t have any options left. I am diabetic. I am post Cancer. I had a full hysterectomy because of the Cancer. I have no to very little estrogen in me. My vagina is in constant pain, My body fights me. I can’t take any joy in food anymore, it’s killing me. Literally. I have constant yeast infections. I haven’t had sex with my boyfriend in weeks because it’s too painful for me.  I am at my wits end. 

All of the things in life I love have been taken from me. My hopes and dreams have been taken from me. I am in pain all of the time. But I live. Everyday more angry. Everyday more bitter. I live for these people that would have a few days of sadness and move on with their lives. I live for these people that really don’t understand what I need. 

Christmas just came and left. Everyone knows what I’ve been through. My fucking step mother gave me quite literally a tower of chocolate and sugar for Christmas. I’m fucking diabetic. You clearly did not think about me once during the holiday season and passed off some shit from your office holiday party to me as a gift, knowing full well this shit could kill me. This was what put it in my head.Just end it, no one else cares about your conditions – why should you?

Everyone in this country is a self absorbed piece of crap. Living day to day scrambling to get more shit more more more. Better phone / TV / car. Why live if you can’t have awesome shit. I can’t afford my rent. I got my awesome from Freecycle because I am fucking broke. Pre-cancer I lived in a car with the Smoker for a few weeks. Things were bad. Real bad. Then this Cancer happened. I prayed to God to please give me ten years. Enough time to start a family, make my peace with the people in my life – then I would go peacefully. I just wanted to do the few things I had dreamed of before I left this world. I worked with my oncologist to try and find some way to make it an option to have a baby. 

The hysterectomy came, my hormones went crazy. I went through estrogen withdraw. I felt wrong in my own body. I felt like a guy. An angry crazy guy. Some estrogen therapy helped. But I can no longer do any of that – money. American awesomeness disease. Gotta have gotta have, now now now. 

Somewhere in New Haven there is a lab with my frozen ovaries and uterus. For $7,000 they may be able to produce an egg and impregnate a carrier of my “child”. If I had $7,000 I would have done this. It was my one want in this life. A baby. A family. A home. A real home, not like the shit my mother gave me. 

Currently, I work three day jobs and run a small business on the side where I make and sell my shitty “art”. I barely make $7,000 in 6 months most of the time. This is how I have to live. I can’t work all of the time. But I work as often as I can. I kill myself physically for all of the awesome nothing that I have. Everyone thinks I am so happy. Such an inspiration. That girl, she went through Cancer and she is so strong. I’m not strong. I’m weaker then most of you. Emotionally and physically I have taken on more then I can handle and I want it to stop. Had I known this is what life would have been like for me I would NOT have done chemo or radiation. I would have made my peace with the people in my life then and there and let it go. My life is not better. My fight was not worth the aftermath. I still have nothing, except now I am told I am lazy. No one understands. The second you say Cancer Free people assume everything is all better, back to normal and LEAVE you. No one wants to hear about it anymore. 

In treatment they pump you full of this positivity and false hope. Life is such a precious gift, And it is, for those who have the ability to enjoy it. What they don’t tell you, this precious gift comes at a price. A price that may never go away. Mine never goes away. Shit, they never even bothered to take the port out of my fucking neck. What does that tell you?