the most damn moving thing I've ever read

[baratron]

You all get sick of me bitching about my health. Hell, I get sick of me bitching about my health. But the fact remains that, in contrast to some other people, I have it lucky. A mere 8 prescription medications a day is nothing compared to others, and my needle phobia would barely stand up to a permanently-implanted IV. There are no numbers that mark the progression of my disease, because my medical conditions are constant, non-progressive and manageable. I am not dying, except in the same slow way that every living thing on the planet is.

kamigirl25's journal is quite honestly the most damn moving thing I've ever read. She started it when she already knew she had breast cancer, and it's about her 4 year fight against it. I don't honestly think I've ever seen someone face dying with quite so much living - the whole "hey, I'm dying, but I'm damned if I'm going to stop living just because of that" attitude. That's not to criticise people who choose a different path, but just that I hope, if it's ever me in that position, that that's how I'll be able to do things.

Don't go to Karen's journal unless you've got 3 or 4 hours to read and it doesn't matter if you're sitting there crying your eyes out at it.

The most moving thing of all isn't even in her own journal - it's in her friend ethel's about How she met Erasure - part 1 & part 2.

And I keep thinking of the Sandman story, where Eurydice is dead and Orpheus goes to ask his father Dream for help in speaking to her again. And Dream, the old Morpheus, doesn't understand why he is upset, and says:

You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life.

And at times, the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. Buty this will happen less and less as time goes on.

She is dead. You are alive.

So live.