Thoughts

This morning I attended a service for a woman who attended our church. She was 38, married, with a young son, and she died after a long battle with cancer. And the way in which she came to terms with her disease and her death, and used her remaining days to help and inspire others, was unbelievable. I didn't get a chance to know her as well as I would have liked, and I think, if I'm honest, I avoided her a little bit toward the end because her mortality, and the prospect of my own, frightened me so much. One thing that her husband said really stuck with me: the hardest thing for her to accept was that she would not live to see her son grow up. He's a wonderful little boy, and thinking of him and his loss just hit too close to home with me. He's between Big Girl and Two in age. Her husband's first name is also the same as Hubs' name, and - although I don't really discuss it with Hubs - the prospect of one of us being left alone to raise our kids terrifies me. Perhaps even more so because Hubs' father died when he was quite young, and although I never knew his father, I feel that absence, that void in his life and in our lives very keenly. I've never been a fearless person. I never jump into situations that make me afraid or uncomfortable, the way that Big Girl sometimes does. But with this - the prospect of death, of being alone, of facing so much unknown-ness - I'm even more of a chicken. I know that avoidance isn't the best way to deal with uncomfortable issues and questions, but so far that's what I'm doing.