Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Getting Through It

Friends of mine are in a bad way this week.
One friend was stranded with her adult daughter in Colorado Springs, but through some fancy footwork with a credit card, a few things to sell on Ebay, and friends loaning money, we managed to get a bus ticket for them to come home tomorrow. And wonderful people in the Springs went out of their way to make sure they were safe and cared for, in the meantime.

Another friend is facing another battle with a recurring illness. After having had surgery in January, further, more intensive surgery is needed, and coming up on August 5th.

Yet another new but dear friend is battling a brain tumor. This will be her seventh session with chemo, and it will be interspersed with radiation therapy, I figure right now they are trying to give her as much time as they can. Her son is a gem. He is keeping us posted on how she is doing. I hope knowing we are listening is helping him, too.
She is a veteran, and had a bad series of war zones, and damn but she deserves better than this. Hell, don't we all deserve better than that?

Sometimes wise things come out of my fingers. At the time, my friend who was emailing me needed to hear it; today, I need to hear it again.
She honored me by posting it in her blog, smoothing it into something fine, and I quote her reworking of it here:
"...And Diana, on the receiving end of that email, with the wisdom of having been both participant and observer in such things, reminded me that it is harder to witness suffering than to live it. When it is ours, we deal with it and adjust, enjoying what we can do and getting through what we can’t."

Here's hoping we all get through it this time, too

5 comments:

Leslie said...

How perfectly perfect, thank you for sharing it with us.

LynnM said...

I was moved when I saw your quote on our friend's blog. Profound words.

Susieknitster said...

That saying is so true. We have a good friend who's husband was just killed in a Helicopter accident. I don't know how she is facing all this. But I know she will come through this, just like your friends will come through their problems.

AlisonH said...

A brain tumor. Wow. I have nothing to complain about! And I'm glad your stranded friends have good people to help out. The hard times will fade away; the memories of the love that made the difference will be with all of them, and all of you, and me, too, always. We're all in this life thing together.

Karen said...

Dearest Diana--What wise words you gave to your friend and to all of us. Life can be so difficult but it's made a little easier by the encouragement of others who care. Blessings!