┋I’ve known four close people that have died of cancer. I’ve personally cared for three and two of them I’ve seen give their last breaths.
I can still vividly remember all the nights I’ve spent caring for my grandmother. I can remember taking her out for a walk while she was doing chemo. I remember one of the first days we went to visit her in the hospital, the whole family, we were laughing and trying to cheer her up. She told us she’s going to die, with a smile on her face. I remember caring for her in her last two weeks. It was me, my mother and my father taking shifts. The poor woman, who had raised me as a child, shouldn’t have gone through what she did. The torment, screaming and twisting in her bed. She was far too godly, good and kind to experience that.
My grandfather was 95. We took him to the hospital one day, when he vomited the entire night and when he came out, he was diagnosed terminal. While I was caring for him, his legs were hurting and feeling cold – his circulation was bad. I massaged him and while doing it told him it’d help his blood flow. A few days later he asked me to cut his legs like I had to help the blood flow. His last few breaths were short, quick. He didn’t suffer long.
The family friend we cared for at my house, man was young, even in his 60s. He had been a police officer for his entire life and it came as a shock to see so frail the man I had known to be massive and imposing, yet cheerful and laughing. I knew the moment I saw him he had lost all hope.
My father’s cousin, who was barely in his 40s, had never made much of himself. Yet he always had a laugh going on and, despite where he was in life, he was a bright soul. Not anymore.
I can’t emotionally describe what it’s like to experience that moment when someone is about to die. To say it’s a traumatizing experience is an understatement. To say it’s a horrific disease to go through, filled with pain bordering on torture is an understatement.
Any little bit of help any of us can do towards helping find a solution to cancer is worth it. Be it money, helping publicize a noble cause or being close to those suffering and those caring for them. So I Relay hoping that one day, a young man won’t have to care for his close ones and people with years ahead of them won’t have to be buried early. Hoping that those who’d survive won’t have to fight to do so. Hoping that one day, hearing those news won’t be the end of one’s world. That’s Why I Relay. ┋
I miss you grandma. Wish we could argue about God, or eat together again. I miss you, grandpa. I still see you planting and doing your gardening in the yard. Hell, I didn’t know you for long, but Costel, I miss you too, man. And Lucian, one of the people I grew up with, I miss you too, man.
✠ Thank you to my wife, Ryanna, for the support.
Shot taken at the amazing Isle of Shadows sim of the Fantasy Faire 2020, closing May 10th! Click the names to go to each of the locations while you can!
CREDITS:
✘ Pose ◆ Synnergy ◆ Sledgehammer @ The Darkness Event