TheBanyanTree: My Turn

[Margaret R. Kramer]

My dad died in March.  My ex-husband died last week.

My coworker’s mother is dying from lung cancer.  Her mother’s stomach is
swollen up like a balloon.  She can’t walk anymore.  Her speech is slurred.
Cancer is taking over her mother’s body and all they can do is make her
comfortable and watch the clock tick, tick, tick.

Another coworker’s father is dying of cancer as well.  He knew he was sick,
but didn’t go to the doctor until he had to be hauled in to the emergency
room.  He had surgery, but now he won’t eat or accept radiation or
chemotherapy treatment.  The family is on a death watch, too.

My friend’s 42 year old brother has a cancerous brain tumor which was
removed.  But they found another one and they’re not going to operate.  He’s
losing his vision and needs a walker to keep his balance.  It’s only a
matter of time.

Death is becoming too much a part of my life.  Once it was an occasional sad
happening, now it seems to be almost a weekly event.

With all this death around me, I naturally think about my own.  When is it
going to be my turn?  I’m in reasonably good health.  My blood pressure is
low, I don’t have diabetes, my weight is under control, and my pap smears
are normal.  But I did smoke for 25 years.  What kind of chain reaction did
I set off that might cause cancer later on?

Will death smack me in face as in a car accident?

Or will death torture me with cancer or Lou Gehrig’s disease or Alzheimer’s;
deteriorating bones, brain cells, and muscles until I whither away?

Will I slip into death while I’m sleeping?  Maybe my heart will stop beating
and that will be it.

I don’t want to die.  Death terrifies me.  I don’t want to do it.  But I don
’t know of anyone who has lived forever.  I can’t escape death.  I can’t
have someone come with me to help me be brave.  I have to die on my own, by
myself.

No matter how and where I die, I hope it doesn’t hurt.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

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