Timing is everything (or is it)

VOTE

Oh boy it is dreary and rain is falling down here today, a great day to either be productive with chores or crawl back in the bed with a good book!

I noticed that the airwaves were filled last night with the annual 

STAND UP TO CANCER

program

and had to wonder if it was good timing, bad timing, or just the annual event that happens and serves as a painful reminder to all.

CANCER SUCKS

and it does not care if you are a child, an adult,

a democrat, republican, good or bad person.

It attacks without rhyme or reason

and often kills.

The statistics given last night were staggering as were the stories, the little boy who builds legos to get his mind off of cancer, as his bald head showed scars and his smile lit up the screen.

The man who trained K9's and protected and served in Baltimore for 28 years of service to then be diagnosed with Lung Cancer

yet was able to participate in the newest of research made available and now has no signs of cancer,

I was sitting with tears on my face and amazed.

I listened to many who talked about the need for more, the research being cutting edge, the 

HOPE

and the resources that are needed.

It was then that it hit me like a mac truck.

We have just finished listening to about the economy, the lack of jobs, the current state of affairs on wall street, watching millions be spent on ads that are driving Americans nuts with anger,

and most of us live paycheck to paycheck

and here we see those who have manning phones to receive donations to this magnificent organization built on hope and cure.

So many who have had to fore go Cancer screenings and needed mammograms because of lack of insurance or companies that will not cover them or exorbitant costs and no longer can afford the premiums.

Men who don't go in for prostate screenings because it is "embarrassing a thought" and those who cannot abide the idea of their butts in the air for a colonoscopy.

And young women who regularly self check their breasts and see their physicians all of a sudden, find or are found to have a lump that is Cancer.

CANCER SUCKS

 Cancer doesn't care who you are, doesn't care if you are like a young man who has found the love of his life, like Billy Ray who just returned from serving his country in Afghanistan. Billy Ray is married to a woman that works for the hospice that Mom/Dot/Cob has volunteered at for years and still does. They are the "love story" of love stories. Both having found each other over the years, and both falling deeply in love and marrying, him going to Afghanistan and recently returning to her! Theirs the "perfect love", the endless love, and just last week Billy Ray has ended up in the hospital upon his return home to his beloved and fun filled bride to be diagnosed with brain cancer of the worse kind. Please hold them in prayer, in thought, and hope for a miracle for our veteran and his wife.

Billy and Yvonne Ray 

we are thinking about you, prayers going up

for you to have all you need to fight this horrible disease

and to enjoy each breath with each other today.

CANCER SUCKS.

...

 I could only watch so much of this on television last night; too many too much, and Billy Ray and his wife on my mind, and this in my face.

People talked, some performed, those with this horrific diagnosis shared their stories.

Children, adults, and those who have died fighting were talked about while the request was for others to 

STAND UP TO CANCER

and to give what they could.

They were united in their purpose on the stage, in the audience, on the film clips and sound bites.

 

And yet,

I found myself wondering about the timing

and the realities of our worlds

and those who can benefit from this organization as we now are faced with such monumental decisions in November of who will win the votes and sit in the White House.

I flipped channels at one point and saw Romney feeding in some state off the words of the DNC, talking more trash about our President, attempting to use the words of those who had been on the stage against them, or to benefit his agenda.

I felt a bit sick by it all.

 

Health care needs are at the forefront along with jobs, housing and the need for everyone to stand UP united now.

STAND UP

..

Meanwhile this morning I heard from a warrior here,

our Ali whose veteran dad died a couple of months ago under the care of hospice.

She had not the best of hospice experiences and looked to friends and others for support and guidance along the way.

She has been blessed to receive messages from her Dad since his death, his passing from pain and this life to the other side of peace.

She is taking one step at a time, with somedays harder than others, but she is her Dad's daughter, she is doing what she can do, with the grace of a warrior.

Yet along her path, one thing she was not prepared for arrived in the mail two months later, and that was a small booklet sent by hospice:

It's cover read:

"Getting through the First Weeks After the Funeral" 

compliments of hospice and their bereavement program!

Did she have a good feeling?

NO

She posted it on her facebook wall with her dismay, anger, upset, 

and a friend had this to say about that:

 

(Hmmmm almost as awful as getting your AARP invitations whenu are 30, or getting told Catholic Services are willing to help you with your illegal Alien status when you , your husband and all 3 of your kids were born in the USA, I could go on and on , like Sears sending me not 1, not 2 not3 but waiting on #4 of the crispers for our fridge all of which arrived broken and they now want us to pau for the new one because in the 6 weeks you have been trying to get the stupid thing your warranty finally ran out.... Lord the world is FULL of stupid people...learn to laugh at them sweetie, you know your Pop would be howling his butt off at the morons. Just know without the little pretty brochure you found the strength to handle the world , guide your boy and deal with the pain. This, THIS is just stupid shit. God knows we have our fair share of this crap on a daily basis. (((HUGS))) you won't laugh today BUT , down the road some one else will be hurting and you will remember this and be able to tell them that this too shall pass, and hopefully along with it the idiot in charge will have a karmic day that will help equal things out."

 

There have been many comments under the above,

most with frowning faces of comments

of

"are you kidding me?"

 

Timing is everything

and this timing

really missed its mark.

Sorry to hear that one was so terribly shaken by such an act of thought less ness

...

People grieve on and in their own time and speed; in their own way along a journey that is unique to them.  It is a time that often one needs a guide, someone to walk alongside with wisdom at time, with listening ears and senses that will allow you to recognize that each path is quite different while the pain of loss has many similar turns and falls and even times of great wonder.

But it is that persons pain, their journey

and something like a pamphlet or booklet by the famous CareNotes that can be found in funeral homes and shelves at hospice

sent out two months later with no personal note or grasp of where the person is emotionally, spiritually at the time of sending it

can and often does harm to the one receiving it.

We are standing with you Ali, and I am truly sorry that you opened this in the mail and it took you so off guard.

  CareNotes can be found and have been given to people for years, I have given them to folks while at hospice at very specific times if I thought they could benefit from their words.

Many things in bereavement programs that follow the death of a person for 13 months after someone dies in a hospice program are computer generated letters.

they have provided comfort to many across the land, and for others they have angered them, upset them, been sent back with letters attached saying, "do not send this crap to me, you do not know how I am doing or feeling".

So yes,

timing is everything,

CANCER SUCKS no matter the day, time, week, month or person.

Grief can suck too, it can spring up out of seemingly no where and devastate the system as well.

Be gentle with you friends,

keep talking, listening, watching.

...

October is coming, and I do believe that is when those without can find ways to get those free screenings and mammograms!

...

STOMP

 

Walk in Beauty

DRSES

keepin it real