Sending strength to you and your whole family, Jz.

JZ, you're his sister, not some weird flawless being who never gets annoyed or caught up in their own life and problems. Siblings gonna sibling. Your love for your brother has always been clear, is certainly clear to him if it's clear to us. Don't beat yourself up for being a sibling, not a saint.

I am sorry you are stuck far from him and feeling helpless. I wish I could teleport you to his side.

What she said, all of it. I know he knows how much he's loved. Sending strength to all of you.

I love you all and wish I could wrap people up in love blankets of comfort. also have everyone over for soup and cookies.

Oh, JZ, how painful and difficult. So much love to you and yours.

So much love to you JZ.

Timelies all!

{{{JZ}}}

Thanks, all. I really haven't been a great big sister - adequate at best. But I love and admire the crap out of him and I want to smash this thing.

And I'm so grateful for his husband, who has always been cute and charming and teasing and doting and bringing out the best of him (longtime Buffistas may remember them both from the Season 6 finale party with the Somervillains -- my brother was the quiet one, and his husband was the one who said he'd quizzed a co-worker about Buffy to prep for the party, and then after That One Scene, in the middle of the first ad, his cell phone rang and it was his co-worker saying, "I just realized I forgot to tell you about one character, and so you're probably wondering why everyone around you is screaming, 'GILES!'").

But for the last couple of weeks he's been all that plus caregiver and gatekeeper and maker of appointments and jouster with insurance companies and coordinator of infusions and family update provider and a million other things. He is the best spouse, the best partner anyone could dream of for their child or sib, and my brother would be alone and possibly literally dying without his love and withness.

It's so, so much easier to be a Martha, to channel all that frustration and desperate desire to *do something* into...doing something for someone you love. Even while it saps your energy and demands extra effort, you feel...useful, and purposeful. If anything you're doing will help, you'll do even more.

It's harder to sit, out of reach, far away, and unable to actually *do* anything to help. No hand-holding, no bringing cold drinks or sponging of face and neck and wrists, no bad jokes and bed-changing and "just one bite, please." No wrestling with insurance and logistics and dailiness. It's so much harder to not be able to *do.*

Beverly, yes, so much! And yet also so much harder to be the Martha if you're alone at it, and don't have someone close at hand to be your own Martha.

They'll be flying my mom out at some point after they're past the first couple of weeks of active treatment and they know what they need, and then the first and second-hand caretaking can be a little more evenly distributed.

When my mom was so sick, I was 800 miles away. My sister did almost all the caretaking, and I felt horrible about it. All I could do was talk to her, and research stuff. We talked every day, sometimes twice. I drove down to spend a long weekend whenever I could. It never felt like I was doing enough, even though it wasn't possible for me to do more without quitting my job. Which would've been stupid and we both knew it. I still feel guilty though. Sometimes the world just gets in the way.