Twenty-three days later

On April 5 I attended a funeral for a neighbor. He was of a goodly age, 80 or 81, and had died of cancer. The whole neighborhood turned out, and a woman who lives down the street commented on that to me. "Too bad this isn't exactly a block party," I replied. This guy had hosted several block parties when I was young, and they were fun. There used to be lots of block parties around here, with blocked-off streets or (more often) a common party area being defined where everybody's back yards met. But then the homeowners got older, and their children moved away. Most of them. Now our only neighborhood gatherings are funerals.

I saw someone else at the funeral, someone who was diagnosed with cancer four years ago. She has undergone treatment since then, chemotherapy and whatnot. It worked, as well as could be expected. It slowed the spread of the disease. Allowed her to be with her grandchildren, allowed her to sing her beloved Polish hymns in the choir loft at church, one of the last of the Polish-speakers who know the words as something more than just funny sounds.

But chemotherapy has its limits. And as she reached the limits of her treatment, new options were explored. She was looking into taking part in a clinical trial of a new treatment in Philadelphia, at the University of Pennsylvania or someplace like that. Someplace far away, infinitely far for someone with advanced cancer. That was the stage she was at when I saw her at the funeral on April 5th.

Too late. During the evaluation tests it was determined that her cancer had spread. Spread into places where it's very bad to have cancer.

She's dying now. Well, she has been dying for quite a while. Pedantically speaking, she's been dying since she was born. Practically speaking, she's been dying of cancer for a long time. But now her death is that much more immediate. It's probably a matter of days, not weeks.

I saw her today. I took her some lilacs that I had cut from my bushes. They've only just budded, and most of the tiny flowers haven't even opened yet, and the smell isn't very well developed. Maybe in a few days. But I didn't know if I had that long to wait.

She looks...totally different. I am amazed what a difference twenty-three days can make. On April 5 she was weak, but was able to walk on her own, with some assistance for steps and curbs. Now she is bedridden, essentially comatose. I don't know if she will ever see the lilacs I brought her.

UPDATE: She died less than ten hours after I wrote this. Now her suffering is at an end. Goodbye, Cioci Tozi.

Her funeral is this Saturday - four weeks after I saw her at our neighbor's funeral.