Hello and hopefully not goodbye

[mdmkay]

I want to catch up with you. I now have about a year left (see my blog for a lot more info)
I miss you all and hope you had good holidays. I may not post much anymore but my thoughts are with you often.

[Wordworx]

Season's Greetings, Kay.

After reading your latest blog post (which is saddening, despite your intent), I must say you're facing your ordeal with a great measure of courage---and dignity. A dignity that is humble, yet healthy; for it doesn't dread human contact and communicating with others. I feel there are few people in this present age who would accept a situation like yours with such equanimity. No one should be afraid to die, who has truly understood what it is to live. Despite all the struggles you have experienced in your life, your comprehension has compassed that understanding . . . and thus you continue on, making the best of each day.

Therefore I will not say goodbye, for nothing is ever certain in matters of human endeavor. However advanced the medical field is today, doctors still know very little (and can predict even less) of the effects of one's inner spirit upon one's health. You might remain on this mortal plane for many years yet, depending upon your desire and strength of heart. Only our Creator knows the time appointed for you.

Until that time, you shall always have a place here on PDB. In the meanwhile keep doing the things you wish to accomplish, the things that are important to you. You might be surprised to find how therapeutic positive activity can be!

Believe in yourself! and may God bless you in this new year.

Redundant Roy

[mdmkay]

Thank you so much Roy. I was so touched by what you had written it brought tears to my eyes (happy tears for having been so lucky to have found a home here and met so many wonderful people

[Janice J Kennedy]

Hello Kay,

We don't know each other, but when you stated that most people feel uncomfortable about talking to someone about death, I have to agree. My best friend, Paulette who died 4 1/2 years ago, needed to talk about her death, but not anyone in her family would talk to her. Hospice came to her room in the hospital and left her some books. She was too sick, to even read them. No one else would read them to her. I visited her everyday. When I first noticed the books there on her table, I ask her if she had read them. She told me, she was to sick to read them. I ask her if she wanted me to read them to her. Her reply was oh yes, would you? No, one else will read them to me.

It was good for both of us, for me to read them to her. She told me, she felt much better, because now she knew more about what to expect. I learned some things that I didn't know either. A couple of days later, I ask her if she would like for my pastor to come and visit with her. Again, she said, oh yes. He was able to go see her the next day. He talked with her while holding her hand, about going home to see her Heavenly Father. Then he prayed for her. After he left, she told me that now, for the first time she fully realized that she was really going home, and that she was ready. She said, she was able to make peace with it now. She passed the next morning. Some people who are ill don't want anyone to talk to them about it, but others need to. I have learned from the experiences that I have had, it is usually the family, more than the person themselves that don't want to talk about it.

My friend Johnny passed last year, and I talked a lot with him about it. Neither one of us could talk to his sisters about it, because they were not ready to except it. It was only the week before he passed that they were able to acknowledge and except it. I was thankful to be able to be there for him, to talk to, when his family couldn't. Some people just won't and some people just can't. To me, death is like going from one room into another. A room where we haven't been before, where we will continue, but on a much more higher plain, that here. A glorious place where we will forever dwell with our creator, our Father.

But, I would say to you, don't give up. Keep living your life to the fullest, that you are able, for as long as you are able. The Hospice nurse that was with Johnny told us, even thought it was rare, she had seen a few people that was, what the doctors thought, way pass the place of no return, that did recover.

I hope this is, in some small way, a help to you.

God Bless you,
Jan

[poet1108]

Dear Kay....Like Roy and Jan, I, too, read your Blog. And I, too, am in agreement with their words. I watched both of my parents go through their end times...Daddy had but 6 months after his diagnosis of cancer of the liver and Parkinson's and Mom, after Daddy's demise, simply gave up and chose not to live and cope with her own COPD. However, from June 1990 to February 2004, God, for whatever His reason, chose to allow her to remain with us. Yes, she asked why many times! We had no answers. But after watching my Daddy will himself to live until all was in order to his satisfaction after being given the doctor's words he had less than six weeks to live, only in my mind proves you too shall be able to accomplish all that you choose and in His time, He will await you at the top of the Heavenly Stairs. My love and prayers are with you....keep choosing life....KayD

[Maggie]

(I'm copying and pasting my earlier PM to you which you didn't pick up yet.)

Hi Kay,

You will be in my thoughts and prayers!!! I have learned from much personal experience that the doctors know far from everything!!! Having had 3 strokes and two heart surgeries and from having a husband with "short term 'terminal' cancer, I've learned things turn out much better than they were predicted sometimes!!! Keep the faith, my friend!!!

". . . that which we are, we are,
one equal temper of heroic hearts
made weak by time and fate but strong in will
to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson from "Ulysses"

Peggy