November Blue

i really wish i could be warm and fuzzy and hopeful and all about love and peace and joy and family and strength and courage at times like this. but i’m just angry and bitter.

my little cousin. my fourteen year old cousin. the one whose family  i lived with for three months during an internship a few years back. the one who had a nagging sprained ankle and wore an aircast while he got into mischief with friends in the  backyard. the one who delivered his sister’s girlscout cookings to my bedroom door and lingered there awhile to “hang out”. the one i showed the greatest movie ever (“The Neverending Story”, which as I recall he did not love as much as I do). the one with the sprained ankle that turned out to be bone cancer. the one who has been in an unending cycle of remission and relapse. of three years of non-stop chemo. he’s dying.

he’s been dying. i’ve known it. i’ve been the pessimist, a few weeks back wondering aloud to my mother when they would formally call it terminal. the one who faced the medical facts instead of all the ooey gooey gushy lovey crap about keep you chin up and battle and win and fight. i know how these things go. i’ve seen it with my aunt. even when hope claims to be alive and well, those in the room with any medical wherewithall or experience with cancer start to see the writing on the wall. and then the conversation switches from treatment and prognosis to morphine and comfort and pain management. all euphamisms for “he’s dying. and it hurts like hell. and he’s miserable.”

and i don’t care what all the fucking messages on his website say about staying strong and fighting. i say, go into the light. close your eyes and rest. all of us here will be okay. you can go if you’re ready, Cam.

and fuck you, universe. you can take him if you want but why do you have to make him hurt so bad on the way out?!