p=. Dorothy Eva Bell –
Wife, Mother, Sister, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Friend, Angel
March 16, 1915 – January 24, 2003
She was there from my beginning, I was there till her end.
I’m going to go into the story more, later, hopefully. This is a tough one for me. We supported “ACS”:https://www.cancer.org/asp/donate/don_multi_donate.asp?navToScreen=don_1 in the “Relay for Life”:http://www.cancer.org/docroot/GI/gi_1.asp before I was ever hit so hard, right in the gut, as a fully-emotional person. But I saw how fast, firsthand, that cancer can suck the life out of a person. Sure for some it’s even faster, some like “this gal”:http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-18-brain-dead_x.htm who basically collapsed one day, out of the blue, brain dead. “Her little girl”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050803/ap_on_he_me/brain_dead_pregnancy;_ylt=AkbvQ5lZlVQ5TW1liEmphzqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
was able to carry on, thank Goodness, but how sad is it that she’ll never know her mom?
And then there are people that fight, and struggle, and painstakingly every bit of their health, well-being, sanity, and even dignity is stripped from them over a long, drawn out period of time before it is over.
My grammie had only a couple of months, from the point she started going downhill fast, and her diagnosis was made. It was lung cancer, that had metastasized to her brain. They did radiation treatments right away, only to for what is the word…….. something to do with _comfort_ or something like that – no expectations of giving her more time, at all.
This was _years_ after she quite smoking, MANY years. And yes, she did live a long, full life, mothering 7 children, 20-some grandchildren, and many more great-grandchildren, but was this a way to go? It was her worst fear.
All I was able to do was to love her through the end, and to care for her the best way I knew, the way her daughter (my mom) and her (Grammie) had taught me- with my heart. Our wish was just that she was able to get through her last days with as much love, and dignity, as possible.
p=. _*I can only imagine….*_