Milca accuses me of having a book with all the right things to say. I’m very rational, and try to always do the right thing. Even if I haven’t been perfect in the past, I’d say that my track record is much more good than bad.
I am not a creative writer, but I’m fairly good with my words. Being a salesman, you have to be. I was a staff writer for a newsletter team at one of my previous jobs.
I’m pretty good with people, and have many friends. At parties I am typically the guy that talks to most everybody, and is remembered by just about everyone there.
In all my years of living, and with all of these things under my belt, I have nothing to say to a friend who has just found out that their father has cancer.
I found out that my godmother has cancer a bit more than a year ago. For all intents and purposes, she should have died many months ago. Those first several months were horrible. Every time the phone rang, I was sure that it was “the call.” Every time I saw her she looked worse and worse. There were a couple times she collapsed, sometimes in my arms, only to wake up again several minutes later. She is constantly in pain. She is losing teeth. Tumors are pushing their way through her skin. Tumors are eating bones to the point of breaking.
In all this time, there’s nothing that anybody has said that has made it better. Having friends and loved ones around that showed their friendship was greatly appreciated, and still is, but it’s like trying to fill a fissure with a teaspoon.
What do I say? What can I offer her? My words bring no solution. Maybe that’s my problem, I’m thinking like a man. What’s worse, I’m a mathematical man, which means not only do I have an urge to find a problem and solve it, but since I know there could be a solution I am determined to find it.
The fact is that there are no solutions. There weren’t any when my grandparents died, nor when a friend’s father had died in our freshman year, or even now, for another friend’s father.
Everyone must walk there own path. Though these paths sometimes cross, and may look like another path, they are all unique. Nobody’s path is always easy to walk, in fact the path is often rocky with switchbacks every 10 feet. For those rocky times, I offer myself as a walking stick. An aid, but not a solution.
My prayers, hope, friendship, concern, fear, despair, happiness, joy, grief, hugs, kisses, raspberries, and general Loopiness are yours, Marissa.