Breathe

I should be finishing up my ridiculously overdue work, but my mind just can't focus.  My heart is winning this tug of war with my brain and there is really no point in trying to convince either otherwise.  There is just so much pain weighing on my chest.  It is a combination of heartbroken for myself and heartbroken for one of my closest friends who is inevitably going to understand this post in a completely different manner within the short weeks to come.  There is nothing uplifting, positive, or really even hopeful to share with someone about to face something so absolutely tragic, but as she mentioned to me that she felt like she wouldn't ever breathe again, but finished her sentence with  "but, clearly you are proof that you do".  Since the superhuman in me seems to have gone on vacation, I admitted that sometimes it is really as impossibly hard as one can imagine.

The truth is if you haven't or don't have a child who has a terminal diagnosis you really can't imagine, because your brain is extremely fascinating in that manner, and it just doesn't allow you to even try and comprehend something so outlandish.  If you do, well you almost can imagine it, but that thought makes you physically sick, so you lie to yourself and say you can't imagine, mainly because it is too painful to consider, but also because even though you have a decent idea after living through what you already have, there is a part of you that truly just cannot fathom what imagining really means.  Again, it is one of the brain's greatest gifts, relish in it, because one day you won't have to imagine.

There is no amount of preparation that can help you come to terms with the reality that your child is dying.  There is no amount of comfort care that makes it at all feel comfortable.  There are no easy decisions.  There are doubts, there are fears, there is internal bias, there is judgment, and there is sheer and utter panic. After living one hell of a roller coaster your only exit is to go and ride something similar to the Tower of Terror.  There is nothing that comforts the reality of it and the concept of hope, if there is even a shred of life left in that word, changes drastically.  It becomes hope for being able to survive, hope for being able to get up each day, hope to be able to fake it through the days, and hope to simply be able to breathe.