The Last Goodbye was Never Meant to be Like This
Given that she had narrowly, and yet triumphantly, cheated death a year before while she was living in Poland, I was perhaps a little overconfident when my cousin asked for a phone call. Although she was her usual upbeat self, her words landed like dirt on freshly fallen snow.
I should not have been surprised. She had been fighting a very deadly form of cancer for a year. But denial is a many splendored thing and my knees crumpled with the shock.
Mind you, my voice stayed strong. I wasn’t about to let her know how hard the news of her impending death hit me.
When confronted with a misfortune or a tragedy that has befallen a loved one, I make little to no outward expression of emotion and go right into problem solving mode. Of course I couldn’t solve stage four cancer. But that didn’t stop me from launching into helper mode.
Could I call our other cousins for her? Done! Would I be the person she could share her pain and depression with? Yes.
I absolutely did not want her to care-take me while she was dying. I knew there would already be a long queue of fans and mentees who would be foisting their tears and sorrow on her already weighted down shoulders.
We were two states away from each other. She now lived in Seattle and I lived in…
