Thoughts to share...

Several friends and family members have sent me touching emails with either reflections or insights on many of our posts....

From Mom's French sister (and our French Aunt), Chris:

...I try to remember Mary just as she was when I last saw her, she was pregnant with the two of you and beaming all the time. As for Craig, I can picture him sitting on the front steps to our house in Codalet, with a beautiful smile on his face...

 From one of our cousins on my dad's side, Carol:

...I don't believe we've actually ever met; I have a vague recollection of our grandmother, Deedaw, talking about you and Jill helping each other wash your hands while at her house (she marveled at your partnership), and I think over the years I have sort of adopted that as a "memory" of you two.  I met Diana years and years ago (she had to be one of the most beautiful toddlers I have ever seen), and Craig (he was wearing a red Superman cape and pulled open the door to Deedaw's basement popping off the security chain to which he exclaimed, "I must really BE Superman!").  I also remember your Dad, some years later when you were going back for an advanced degree, asking me if I had ever heard of Human Factors Engineering and seeming relieved when I said, "Yes, that's a great field!".

 From our former babysitter Amy--here are thoughts regarding a post Jill wrote about cancer metaphors:

...The voice from the past speaks again!

 I've been reading your blog posts--I admit that I open each entry with a bit of trepidation because clearly your days aren't easy (I have a talent for understatement!) but what you are writing strikes me as so important--not only for you and your family and those of us who wish you well but because it is so honest.

 Jill's post today about metaphors for "fighting" cancer touched on a topic that is close to my heart and I get a little soapboxy about it so I couldn't resist sharing a couple of thoughts with you... As the NYT article alludes to (or at least my bias makes me read in to it) the problem with all the fight metaphors or positive thinking encouragement is that the dark underside of both is that if you don't feel like fighting or being all that positive--even for just a day, a moment--that some how the fact that the patient doesn't get better is the fault of the patient in a horrible blame the victim mentality.  There is this secret implication in even the kindest of hearts that if you'd just taken my advice and eliminated wheat from your diet or tried the yoga tapes that my cousin's best friend's boyfriend said cured his third grade teacher, you wouldn't be going through this right now.  Or maybe I just have extreme passive/aggressive/paranoid tendencies to even think that :)

 I think the real struggle in finding metaphor for illness is that there simply isn't one. Metaphors are useful and wonderful for helping to put things into context or perspective, but frankly, there is no context or perspective for life and death.  They just are.  The most fundamental of the fundamental.  And the truth is we each have to find our own way-of course  with help and support along the way.

So I guess my hope for you is that you feel in your hearts what your writing acknowledges--given what you are facing, doing the best you can each day and in each new curve that comes round the bend isn't measured against some sort of objective gold standard.  It's about love and reality and fear and sadness and hope and joy and doing things the best way you know how...