It's a never ending battle......

.....with cancer.

My mom emailed me a few days ago to tell me that my Uncle Adrian has lung cancer. From what she knew it wasn't that bad and they were going to determine the next steps. She really seemed like this was going to be not so bad.....

Sunday she called to say that she had been to see him and my Nana (let me explain the relationship here. My Nana and Uncle Adrian are my mom's aunt and uncle. They have forever been a constant in my life, just like grandparents - to me there is really no difference. Nana is my Memaw's oldest sister).

Anyways, my mom had been to see him and Nana and my always upbeat, always positive, always with a coke in a small glass with some Saltines and peanut butter Uncle Adrian had shrunken into a man who had been swallowed up by this disease.

I'm going to be real honest and say that cancer does scary things to people. I've seen it up close in my dad. I remember vividly he had no color in his skin. It was a very clear color. His eyes were very, very deep in his head and had a purplish, bluish, blackish look around them. I worked with a man at Franklin MS who had cancer. This man never looked like my dad when he was healthy. However, when cancer overtook him, the resemblence to my dad was unreal. Mom said the resemblence to dad was there again. Nana just sat and patted his hand.

The news of the biopsy came Monday afternoon - 3 to 6 months, but closer to the 3 month time frame. My first thought? In 3 months, it will have been 3 years since my dad died. Here we go again.......

I am not ready to lose someone else, and to be quite honest, I am tired of watching people I love die. I am selfish. Garrett and I have been together for over 5 years. In that time, I've lost a grandmother, 2 grandfathers, my dad, a childhood friend, and now Uncle Adrian......when do I get a break from all this??? Garrett hasn't lost anyone since his grandmother died when he was 15. I am not at all in any way asking for Garrett to have someone die, but when does someone get a break??? When does this cycle end for us? When can our lives not be overshadowed by someone else getting sick and dying?

I am so tired of it, so tired of loss, so tired of the emotions that rise up in me when someone else dies. I relive the smells, the sounds, the words I heard the morning my mom called and told me dad had "seen Jesus" that morning. I am tired of it. I am tired of the hurt, the longing for my dad. The wound is as open as it ever was. I just want a few years where I don't have to relive all those feelings again. I really feel it will help my heart.

I know people get old, I know that my Uncle Adrian can't live forever, and he has had a wonderful life, full of kids, and grandkids and great grandkids....I remember he always gave us Coke and made us Peanut Butter on Saltines. We used to sleep on their fold out couch and he would let us stay in bed all day and rent us Anne of Green Gables and used to laugh at how much my sister loved those movies! He would let us stay on that couch all day and would bring us our breakfast, lunch, and dinner on that couch. He never let us lift a finger when we stayed with him.

I love him, I'm going to miss him, and I am forever changed by his influence on my life.......