Dear Tanya,

It's good to hear from you again.

You write that your home speaks of a silent Christmas feel this year.  I have to disagree, because maybe a silence is created through a lack of emotion; I'm not getting that with you.

Isn't Christmas about all that we hope (and for children who expect) things will be?

Kathy

I am glad to hear the hearts still beating.I am sorry they are making you jump through hops .We are lucky that there is help available but i know when i signed on for invalidaty beifit and had to drive to the next town and explain my terminal illness in the open plan office when she must have had it all on the computer anyway,one cant help thinking there should be a better way.I think i was lucky the lady was so nice and didnt make me go back for work assesment.

Why dont you let your friend put up that tree you want.She may not be the person you want her to be but it sounds like she is trying  and if she is a cow then working will be good for her so it would be your christmas good deed.I think i am partly telling you what to do because i am putting off ringing an old school friend because through she was friends through my other ill health but she is not so keen on the cancer and those bridges are becoming shaky.Anyway if you do go for an imaginary tree it will be spectacular .may i suggest real candles,lots of chocolates ,strings of real pearls and a real angel on the top.

I hope your christmas is a good one.

Dear midway

i hope the stars will wtch over you this christmas.

Dear Tanya,

How goes your Christmas shopping?

Did you find your brother's present?

Kathy

Christmas Eve came and went, as did Christmas Day.  My "Eve" was not filled with food, family asking questions, children with wide eyes over their gifts.  My home was silent yet the festivities went on without me; as planned.  My brother did not bother to tell me until the evening before the planned festivities, that my 3 year old Nephew has bronchitis.  My eldest brother failed to tell me until the day of, that his girlfriends' 17 and 19 yr old boy's would also be attending.  I had mentioned to my eldest brother, "I did not get them anything as I was under the impression this was "Our" family Christmas, not his girlfriends'"  I continued to say, "I have never met either of the 2 boys, not sure of what they like etc.."  He says to me, "Just stop by the dollar store and get them something".....Wow, so Christmas IS about gifts huh?  and WHAT am I going to find at some dollar store for 2 teenagers????......

   Long story short, my little brother with his sick child (the twin Neice not being ill) went over there & they had a great Christmas without their sick non-contagious sister.... On Christmas Day late in the evening, with his liquid courage in him, the elder brother called, not to apologise for forgetting to call on my Birthday; not to apologise for a "screw you, I'm still having Christmas" but to tell me he had wallowed in a hot tub with his girlfriend & had proposed to her; "I gave her this beautiful ring.".....Same story for my little brother; no Birthday wish, no Christmas wish; void of proposing to his girlfriend is the only thing lacking.

   I figure Santa must be reallll mad at me.  But who wants someone that looks sick & is nothing but skin and bones at their Holiday festivities?  Its too much of a reminder for them.

   Christmas Eve, through the tears I tried oh so very hard to not flow; I prayed.....Hard...."I want to spend Christmas Day with Jesus **** this year, Please, please take me home".  Not yet........

   When I told my brother that this contagious illness my nephew has could be 10 X's worse on me than the average person, he told me to "bite the bullet and do it anyway, this could be our last Christmas together".......I don't know, I just feel like "my circumstances" do not matter.  Call me out for being wrong if you will.

   As I lay in bed, its not sugar plums that danced in my head, all cuddled up with a few stomach pangs, I found that movie to watch, also being my favorite, "It's A Wonderful Life."  It did not get my mind off of how much fun my family was having, it did not make me shed that joyous tear, "Teacher says that everytime a bell rings, an angel gets his wings"......Let the bell be heard, for God is almost ready for his newest Angel; I'll probably fall to the ground a few times as a baby bird does when they are 1st learning to fly; as with anything, once I get the hang of it I'll be soaring....

I truly believe that I have done something very bad in my life to deserve all of this.  That being said, I think its time to do some more soul searching....

Tony-I have been trying to send an email but it just won't send, computer just hangs; somehow I think the people that are out to hurt me are involved; just know I have been trying....

Hey Tanya,

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

People ay!....I read your notes about your experiences with people and I am lost for words, speechless how selfish people are...how weak and amazingly self centred. I used to have this obsession whereby I would ponder on people that were strange in the way the did not act they way they should (or the way I thought they should). I would sit for ages trying to 'work them out' but eventually I realised that I could not change them and that they were lesser people because they could not feel and think the way normal people did! I am sure they must have their good points....somewhere.

As for the film...you can disbelieve if you want but It's a Wonderful Life is my favourite film of all time! I absolutely love it!

It appears to me that 'people' act as if nothing is happening when they dont know how to handle the current situation.

I truly believe that there are some people in the world that don't necessarily do bad things in a karma sort of way I just think in the same way our state of mind can attarct an abundance of wealth it can also zone in and attract negativity and hardship....why is it that even against the toughest of odds some succeed and others dont even have to try hard to get nothing and no where.

I will wait patiently for you mail...no rush, I dont need a mail to know my friend is out there.Do you have MSN messenger..my account is my email address.

What are you up to on NYE?

Much Love

Tony

So as to satisfy the readers out there that have thee "It could be worse" mantality......Yes, it could be worse, my head could have just fell off one day, my house could have burned to the ground Christmas Eve, my entire family could have died in one day, I could go on, my point is this:  I may very well go through this 4 or 5, 6, 7, 8 years, only God knows.  I have been going through it for almost 4, if you would like to count the 6 months when I couldn't shower myself becuz chemo stole everything, then I have been dealing with this for almost 4 1/2 years.

   Everyone has their own degree of tribulations, I will never overlook that for anyone on an individual basis, but for "me", there is nothing worse than trying to figure out how to die from this horrible "Cancer".  A friend of a friend was doing the chemo for 6 months; her final chemo she was to get her test results to see how the chemo was doing for her lung cancer.  Before she was called back to do her final chemo, she saw the Dr., he told her the chemo is doing nothing, the cancer has spread; we give you 6 months to 2 yrs to live.  She died the next day.......For almost 19 months now, I have been trying to figure out how to let go of this life, how do people do THAT?  The torture my non-social cancerous life gives to me daily since August 2007 is about the worst experience I have ever had to endure,

   I have always been that honest person, please note that I meant this post well.....(Some written words are misconstrued as being anger, bitternes, what have you) -I'm luckt to have been taught how to walk in others' shoes 

Dear Tanya,

I'm not sure what to write about your Christmas.  I wish it had been what you expected.  For some reason I thought it would be.

You know I wrote about having an idealised view of family. It therefore stood to reason that when push came to shove, your family would make any effort it took to be there for you.

What I didn't realise was that people often don't like to face their own mortality, particularly at this time of year!  What I didn't realise was that your family didn't realise that you have face to the same at all times of the year.

Why is that Christmas is such a great reminder of what we have in stark contrast to what we had.  We knew those things during the rest of the year.  Christmas should really bring no surprises there, but like children, it hits us.  I think we all have that childish expectation that everything will be alright because it's Christmas.

When I spoke to someone earlier, she said that she'd shared Christmas Day with a friend, but she'd rather have been on her own.  "Really?" I said.  I was genuinely surprised.  I shouldn't have been.  The woman is old and wise.  She's the sort of old that isn't, if you know what I mean.  Various people have guessed at her age (she won't tell anyone) and I think she's in her early to mid 80s.  Her age means nothing to her and I'd say she was in her 70s when she learned to speak another language.  She was probably older than that when she learned to use the internet.

Anyway, in answer to my surprise at her wishing she was on her own at Christmas, this woman said (in the impatient way she has with people) "Well, Chrismas day is just another day."  I just agreed, but  I was a bit non plussed (I never usually use that word).

Anyway, I'd gone on to do the Christmas Day thing.  You know, made Christmas dinner for a friend and myself, then did the same thing today (Boxing Day).

I still can't help feeling though that your family have missed a big opportunity to let you know how much they care for you.

Kathy

It must be simple;  Out of sight, out of mind; should I have ever had a friend diagnosed with a terminal illness, I would do everything I could to make a million memories.  In hindsight, I did; my Dad.  Although my memories carry some of the worst times in my young life with my Father, I loved him no less, I didn't like him very much but God, I loved & respected the man while I was a child.  After I was an adult & the cancer brat bit him, he was a different man; he no longer treated me as that child.  I try my hardest to stop myself and others of speaking ill of him as he is not here to defend himself but its that past that has built the person I am today.  I often wonder if I have brought all this lonliness onto myself.  I won't deny that there were a few people out there that needed to be void of my journey, it suprises me they were so easy to let me go though.  What does that say about me?  Perhaps being that honest to goodness person that denotes who I am and what I stand for has been detrimental to me all of these years.

   When I was young, I would have these dreams, dreams of being in an amusement park; all of the rides are going, but I am the only person there.  I had had an elder friend back then who would interpret dreams, she told me then that this meant I would have very few friends later in life.  Little did I know, how much I needed my friends & family when my later came.....

   When I received my toe-tag, I certainly had the mindset not to tell a soul.  I suppose I should have stuck to my guns.  Sure they all would have asked their questions about my losing weight; looking pale; etc. but I would have always thought the best in them, being none the wiser to who they would have turned out to be as I now know.

   Forgive any redundancy in any of my writings as I "think" I may have mentioned this; I have been writing in Journals since I was 13 or 14 years old, I thought of writing a book based upon the events enclosed that my memory has washed over through the years.  Upon looking back at one of them a while back, I believe I was in my 20's, I had one entry that really sticks out; "I cannot believe all of the things that are going on right now, most people usually have one major trubulation at a time to overcome, I have always had so much more to deal with at one time; God must be preparing me for what's to come later in my life".  Reading that entry, made my heart sink.  When we were waiting for my Dad's journey to end, I thought I was more than prepared for it, silly young woman..... In any aspect of one's life, I have found that there is no amount of preparation until it happens. 

   I am through trying to force people to care, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink; Lord knows how often I have taken the thirsty horses in my life to that large pond of knowledge only to have them turn around & walk back into their own pastures.

   In my imaginary place last evening, I closed my eyes not to explore dreamland but to get lost in my imagination.  I found myself in some sort of park, people were having a picnic lunch off in the distance.  It seemed to be comfortable weather.  I had brought my guitar just to sing to the many birds that surrounded me, they are quiet critics should I miss a note or two.

   I found a bench with a large tree not far behind me.  A bit apprehensive, I began to strum the guitar.  I do not have the words to the song I sang but I assure you all, it would move the most hardened of hearts.  I didn't hurt, wasn't pale, wasn't too slim, wasn't vomitting, had no time restraints for a medication regimen, I was simply alive & living. Yes, I still had "the illnes" but looking at me, you'd never know there was something that serious going on inside of me.  I had "felt" a small audience enveloping my talent.  Not the birds, a man, he leaned up against another tree to the left of my bench.  I lay my hand on the strings to stop the reverb of the cords as I looked over at him.  He wasn't drop dead georgous but easy on "my" eyes.  When he smiled at me, his entire face smiled.  I felt my capillaries filling with that familiar red-faced embarrassment, the picnic-ers were far enough away yet I kept my vocals down & an a consciousness of how loud I had strummed.  He kept his hands in his pockets still leaning against the tree.  A simple nod & a wink from both eyes told me he would be my fan, enjoyed what I was creating & to continue not for only his enjoyment but for my own satisfaction of living......I continue to play.