She tells me, I'm scared.
She just got done with an intense round of chemo. She finds out the results after the new year.
She tells me, I worry every day. I play "what if?" all day long.
She has 2 kids, 11 and 16. They do not have a dad, only a man, somewhere in town, with their same last name and a very short temper.
She tells me, I can't drink alcohol, it makes me sick. I ask her if it has always been this way. Yes. That's probably a good thing, I say. No. She wishes that it wasn't so. She wishes she had had more fun in her life. Like, real fun, she tells me. The kind of fun where you raise some hell and get yourself in and out of trouble.
I think we should throw a party for New Year's . It's my mom's birthday. Everyone could use some fun. No, she says. I'm too worried.
But what she's most worried about, besides bad news, is being in a funk and spoiling everyone else's mood. That's the way she's felt throughout her fight. She never complains. Even when she passes out standing at the counter, even when I direct her to her bed, she mutters lists of "to-dos," mumbling, I'll be fine, go, go.
I work with people who are in pain. I work with people who don't have all of their toes, who cannot snap their own bras, who cannot sleep through the night. I work with a woman who doesn't know if she will wake up tomorrow morning. But you know, I love it, what I do. I love being a part of these sufferer's journeys. To some, I am a sounding board. I can sometimes make the old ladies laugh, sometimes hold the kids when they cry. To some, I am a pain relief. The things I bring them release them from their lives. To some, I am just another shoulder to help them carry their load.
I am in a weird place in my life, working with a very grumpy, angry, sad population of people. But their unique insights on life, the joy that they have learned to derive from what I perceive as trivial, have made me a tiny bit wiser, stronger and happier to live this life I have.
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