It’s hard to grasp the concept of death, and I find it unsettling that the one person in my life who questions EVERYTHING he comes across doesn’t question death. I finally broke down and cried because I feel so guilty for not wanting to go and see him more. I went out to dinner with my family last night, and I almost broke down again because for the majority of the meal it felt like I was sitting next to a ghost of my father. He would occasionally break in with a witty comment, but overall it just felt like he wasn’t there. Not to mention the fact that both he and my mother bring up the most uncomfortable topics at the most inappropriate times… to the point that my brother and I put up a wall between them and ourselves so that we could have a peaceful dinner. Do I want to hear that mom wants to do a slideshow for him when he dies when I’m trying to choke down my broccoli, already trying not to get upset because I feel like he’s already gone? No, I don’t. Give me a fucking break.

The entire thing makes me feel so rushed. Like I’m desperate to fit my entire lifetime into the next few months so that he can see everything and be there with me.

It’s hard. And it sucks. And it’s slow. And in one way I just want it all to end, but in another I really, really, really don’t.

I’m purely looking forward to life right now. I’m looking forward to the changes, and dreading the fact that it’s going to take another month and a half to get there.

I guess it’s also worth mentioning that I haven’t had sex in at least a week and a half to two weeks.

Back to my original point, before I got to bitching about how shitty I feel. If Bill Gates had cancer, would billions of money suddenly find it’s way to researchers, and would a cure suddenly be found? In the same respect, where the hell is all of the money raised by charities and stuff for cancer research going? The American Association for Cancer Research was founded in 1907. Conferences, workshops, newsletters, web sites… honestly, how is this stuff helping? Information, great.

From the AACR.org’s lung cancer fact sheet:

While the most common type, NSCLC, is treated with surgery whenever possible, lung cancer is usually diagnosed after it has spread to other areas in the body, making a cure nearly impossible.

And then later…

Most patients with stage IV lung cancer or stage IIIB in which cancer cells are in the fluid around the lung – are very likely to have disease that has spread to other areas in the body and are treated with chemotherapy. They are rarely “cured.”

Some recent important advances have been made in treating early-stage NSCLC.

Their fact sheet REALLY doesn’t do much at all to give any sort of hope to someone dealing with Stage IV NSCLC (Non-small-cell lung cancer)… which worries me. Stage IV means that the cancer has spread to a far away organ… from the lungs to distant bones, for example, or the lymph nodes. The first quote says that most people with lung cancer are diagnosed once it has spread. So I can assume that a bunch of those are probably Stage IV. So I can assume that a large bunch of people get absolutely no consolation from the “facts”. Advancements have been made for some people with lung cancer! But not you. Sorry!

I’m not knocking the advancements. I’m just frustrated, I guess. Frustrated that it seems like there’s no chance in hell that my dad will live very long. Frustrated that some 30 year old with a 6 year old daughter might be going through the same thing my dad is, and that little girl won’t have her daddy with her when she graduates or gets married. It’s not just selfishness… I admit, I’m terrified that my dad won’t be able to give me away at my wedding, it crushes my soul. But it’s a selfishness for anyone who has to go through something like this. The feeling that not enough will ever be done.

In a completely different note, my cousin is dealing with the loss of her third child. She lost two twins at their birth not too many years ago, and she just lost her beautiful 5 month old daughter to SCID. She was due for a marrow transplant, but she contracted some viruses, her liver shut down, she didn’t make it through. Again, I feel anger that less could be done, but more just a mourning for the loss of an innocent soul.

The more I think about disease and death, the more life seems so unfair, full of inconsistencies and unanswered questions about meaning… value… worth… God… pain… Heaven… prayer… life… death…

I should stop. Bye now.

So I found out that my dad is going to die.

I know, I know. He was going to die eventually before I found it out. But it makes everything seem so… temporary. Going from dreams of your dad walking you down the aisle and being a “grumpaw” to your kids to realizing he’s probably not going to be around within the next couple of years… it’s like running into a brick wall, every time I come to that realization again. My first mistake was running to the internet after I found out, and creating a sort of self-timeline for him. Granted, it’s more than a reasonable one… I pretty much give him 5 years at the most, and try not to think about anything worse than that. I’m reading the message boards… people being given an estimate of 3-4 months and “beating the odds” at 2 years. It’s honestly just as disheartening as thinking he’s dead tomorrow.

What I’m more running into, though, is my own issues with death. I shouldn’t say running into, because I’m actually more coming to terms with them. I’ve realized that I can’t make myself believe something that I will never have proof for. I can’t convince myself of God or of Heaven or of an afterlife, because although I can lie to everyone else, I can’t make myself believe my own stories. As easier as they would make my thought processes and my struggles with the unknown, I can’t lie to myself. I don’t know what happens after you die, and I envy those who truly believe they know.

What I came up with this morning is an interesting twist on reincarnation. Sort of a… leveling up in the universe, if you will. I must be new to the universe, because I can’t fucking fathom anything far beyond my own experience. Someone else, though… someone religious, someone with ingrained beliefs of the way things work… maybe, in some sort of past life, they had more experience than I. They kept something from those lives deep within them, beyond even their own scope of reasonability, that causes them to cling to that belief like a lifesaver… because it’s everything they’ve worked for so far. We cling onto whatever explanations about the universe we can, and we carry them on.

 I’m such a n00b, though, because all I can think about is the finality of death. Wondering how the hell my existance can just come to an end. Wondering… if my daddy will get to walk me down the aisle.

If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.

Interesting considering the exaggerated left-wing v. right-wing dichotomy that’s currently pwning our government.

That’s all!

I used to say that people just gave Florida a bunch of crap for no reason, but then I realized… Floridians are constantly in the news for doing something really fucking stupid. You’re a senator. You are a public figure and government representative. You are also an idiot if you thought that anything you do privately will actually remain private. Also, thanks for hopefully showing the world that people, even Republicans, can be complete hypocrites.

This just has me speechless. I had heard about it before, but it’s still disgusting. It’s like people completely don’t understand anything about what goes on in the world. For one, they don’t understand that their actions and protests are getting in the way of people mourning… not for a “lost soldier”, per se, but for their father and brother and son and friend. It’s like they don’t see the soldiers as people, only as numbers. Not only that, but they don’t see the big picture… yeah, ok, you don’t believe in homosexuality, you think America is being punished. Well, without America you wouldn’t have the right to force your freedom of stupid opinions in peoples faces. You’d be shot for that somewhere else. In fact, I think you should GO somewhere else and try it out. It drives me crazy that people have such broken logic. I can do that, too. OK, see… I don’t like crazy cultist churches. Soldiers are dying. GOD MUST BE KILLING SOLDIERS BECAUSE CRAZY CULTIST CHURCHES ARE DOING STUPID SHIT. Do you see what I did there? I made a completely nonsensical connection between two things! I should start a youth group.

 I’m less angry now that I started looking at cute terrier puppies on Petfinder.

 Also, if you haven’t read the “Declassified Key Judgements” from the NIE… I recommend it. You can’t listen to what Bush says, because he must be reading something completely different than what I read. You can’t listen to what the dirty liberals say, because they leave out the parts they choose to leave out (but what else is new?). My favorite part is how they first say that the diffusion and dispersion of the groups will make it harder to seek out and undermine the jihadist groups, but then they go and say that the splinter groups would cause less of a threat to the US. Personally, I think that five groups with bombs is harder to deal with than one group with a big bomb. Also, I’d like to point out the final line in the document. ”P.S. The Internet supports terrorism!” But whatever, the NIE can say what they want and leave it so that anyone can interpret it how they choose. It’s ok, they’re experts!

 I guess that’s really all that’s going on in the news… except for, of course, people shooting other people. And maybe an ugly mental image of some of those people in the audience. Ehgh.

 One more thing, a bit more personal… I assert that all answering machine messages should be the same. This way I don’t have to deal with the ones that beep as soon as they answer. Or even better, the ones that beep when they answer, then say “leave a message after the beep!” and then beep again. The 10-minute bible verses and garbled recordings of “Hollaback Girl” are unnecessary, as are the people that come up with cutesy messages like “I hear the coooool weather’s coming back, so I’m out enjoying the sunshine!” Yeah, thanks, I’m at work so you can get your medication and you’re enjoying the autumn air. Have a nice day!

-L