Jacqueline, I wish as much good time as possible for you and yours.

All my love to the house of Zmayhem, and hopes for as much peace and joy (and food! and drink!) as possible.

Oh no. Oh, Zmayhems. I'm sending so much love to you all.

Wishing you whatever you need. This sucks.

(I’m not really here these days. But if you need therapeutic cat pics, you know where to find me.)

Thank you, all.

I am hoping that in a few weeks she feels better from being off the chemo, and we have some time.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday calling Jacqueline's mother and brothers and other family members to give them the news. And I was okay doing that.

But posting it here was what made it real and the copious tears happened.

We would make every effort to give her the slimmest chance. But I'm also relieved to not push her through this wringer any longer. It has been brutalizing.

But she is still here, and I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for now because she's still here.

The eating has not come back yet but she slept well, and because her computer is having stupid problems, she spent a good chunk of the day on her Kindle and I think that might have been a blessing.

Take a second to revel in every day's mundane pleasures. Enjoy every sandwich, as Warren Zevon said.

One thing I said to Jacqueline (which was not the softest soap, but the truth I thought that was useful) was that she was not singled out by some awful fate to die. We will all die. Her mother will die. I will die. Her daughter will grow old and die. Her daughter's daughter will die.

Our culture is very bad at dealing with death. Or, it knows how to commodify it but it doesn't know how to weave it into the fabric of our lives.

We all have, as Neil Gaiman pointed out, a lifetime.

Let us all wake up in the morning, announce what we had for breakfast, and move into our days.

SONOFABITCH.

I'm so angry on your behalf. You all deserve better than this bullshit biology.

May the love (and rage) of your many friends and family give you strength, and carry you forward. May there be sunsets and sunrises and lavender and dutch babies and butterflies and music and romance novels.

{{hugs to all the Zmayhems}}

Our culture is very bad at dealing with death. Or, it knows how to commodify it but it doesn't know how to weave it into the fabric of our lives.

I think about this a lot, and it's something we talked about when camping* over the weekend. The miracles of modern medicine have truly been a blessing, but with that blessing, those of us with access to it find ourselves at an unprecedented remove from it, so we've lost those threads. Kind of wish we could figure out how to put them back into place.

(* The actual context when camping was the tonal difference between true crime books written when death was more of a daily part of life and true crime books written in the modern era.)

Tim's second surgery is happening now, so please send successful surgery~ma and easy recovery~ma his way, please.

Go Tim and Tim’s surgical team!!!

Much ~ma for brilliant surgical maneuvers, and easy rapid recovery for Tim.

But I'm also relieved to not push her through this wringer any longer. It has been brutalizing.

I've been close to people who chose the worst brutalizing treatments, and those who chose to treasure whatever pleasures they could with their time with loved ones. It is an incredibly personal decision and I always respected that, but it is kinder to body and spirit to not suffer through the most aggressive treatments.

May you have a longer lifetime to treasure the everyday moments than anticipated.