Friends and Family

It has been a while since I have written. So many excuses from being exhausted from chemo to plain laziness. I have missed writing my thoughts and wondered if anyone missed reading them. The holidays were different and special this year. I am still struggling with the loss of my mother and again this year did not want to continue the tradition of hosting Christmas at my house. Over the years the celebration had become so large that there literally was not room in the house to hold all the people that came. My mother was the grand dame in the celebration with all the grandchildren visiting her paying her respects and praising her stuffing and rice. Since her passing I did not feel like I wanted to have Christimas and for the last two years we have gone away. This year we went on a Cruise and our first stop was Puerto Rico. I was so thrilled to see my family waiting on the Pier. My brother,Sister, Aunts, nieces and cousins, unfamiliar faces to my daughters but a bond that existed through blood that could not be broken. Too little time to truly catch up and visit but it will forever be a memory that will live on in my heart. I wish we lived closer for those bonds of family felt good to reconnect. Seeing my aunt who looked so much like my mother was wonderful and bittersweet. It made me miss my mom so much more.
My sister and her family were wonderful. It is funny how I can have a niece that is my age with a loving heart and a sense of humor that is amazing. I can only imagine that we would be good friends if we lived closer. I am grateful that I have them and my daughters got to meet a family they only heard about.
Seeing my brother in Puerto Rico was hard. I miss him and his wife so much since they left to live there. I worry about them dealing with heat after living in the cold for so long.
I had to send in my medical records to my employer to continue my pension.
I made the mistake on reading the doctors' notes. On one page the doctors comments was that I was so calm when he told me I was closer to death....
I don't think I was calm but accepting, for the voice in me still shouts with anger about this cancer....I still feel the hopelessness but put on a brave face to the world. I begin chemo again in a few weeks after being what was termed as a drug holiday. "Drug Holiday" what a silly term for describing a month off from being filled with poisons and toxins that try to keep the cancer from growing quickly. The treatments will begin again......the process of being sick and feeling like a burden will begin again. The brave mask will be put on again.