ARCHIVES - 1996 to FOREVER

Karen was still asleep, but she awoke shortly after I arrived, when her breakfast came. Luckily, I had brought breakfast for her, she didn't eat much of what they provided. A McD sausage &egg McMuffin....

She mostly slept after breakfast, but we had discussed her coming home for a coupla hours, and she was really up for that.

Rhonda also visited during breakfast, and she had brought a caramel cinnamon roll, Karen's' favorite. And she didn't even touch it, dammit.

She slept until her lunch was served, and then we tried a little excursion around the building... went outside for a little while, until the heat got to me... doesn't take much to make me sweat.

After about 45 minutes in the wheelchair, she was ready to lay back down again, and then she slept until supper, about 17:30.

Reta came in before supper, and I stayed until Kim and Tom came by about 18:45, and I left about 19:30 or so.

Karen got to talk to one of her old friends who had not contacted her for about 20 years, and she got quite angry at him... he was supposed to be a good friend, and he ignored her for 20 years, only to call her when she was on her death bed?

And speaking of phone calls, I got about 20 of them today,Karen'ss' friends and my friends... they all say the same thing... how can we help? And I tell them all the same thing... if anyone could help me, I'd have them here in a minute... but there is nobody who can do what I need to have done.

Karen asked me this morning, "What will it be like to be alone?"

I immediately replied, "I'm used to being alone... and it will be terrible to be without you."

I hate it when I break down in front of her, but I do it about once a day, it seems.

Most of my breakdowns come when I'm sitting in the park smoking... the unbearability of losing Karen comes rushing out, and I sit there weeping and smoking...

And I'm thinking that I'd a self-indulgent sonovabitch, just feeling sorry for myself, and that's at least partly true.

But this is so fucking unfair... I know that life is unfair and I can accept bad things happening to me... but to Karen?

She has been the love of my life, the light of my life....

Yeah, I can go on... but I cannot pretend that I don't cry.

I cannot put on a false face and just say, "yeah, people die, get over it" to myself.

Myself just doesn't get it. Myself will never get over it. Yeah, the wound might heal....

Self-indulgent and selfish? Yeah, aren't we all selfish when something that we love is ripped out of our hearts?

Karen is still lucid, and that is a good thing. The immediate future is completely uncertain, but I know that at some point, the tumor in her brain will overcome the steroids... and given recent history, that might not be very long.

Fuck. I just hate this.

Fuck cancer. Just fuck it.