Thoughts of a dying atheist

Last Saturday, I, for the first time in my life spoke to someone that was dying. Yes, yes, I know we are all dying in the physical/metaphorical sense. But my aunt is losing traction in her long battle with cancer.

An interesting woman that I was never too exposed to, she has exuded valor, strength, courage and determination through this torturous time. It’s absolutely amazing that this woman, whom has played such a peripheral role in my life, is the sole catalyst in a lot of introspection right now.

Her relationship with my mum is bound by the ultimate element…happy memories of a long since past. My mum and she were tennis champs together and supreme conquerors when it came to the doubles format.

I have my opinion on why my mum takes such great strain in this time, considering, growing up, I don’t recollect massive interaction between the two. Yet now, as I’m sure my mum does worry about her son and exhausted husband, it is their memories, forged in the realm of sport in an era of hardship that twists the knife in my aching mother’s heart.

Whilst chemo eats away at her, the core of who she is still shines through in no diluted format. Last week, after a battle longer than 2 years, she mentions to me “Took a bit of a bad turn last night, but are we still on for that game?” It took all of me to not start bawling then and there as she referenced a quip of mine regarding me playing her on her return to full health. There was, however, an undertone, a hint, maybe just an atom worth of exhaustion in her voice…something that I have never heard, even pretty much immediately post chemo.

As her condition has worsened since that last conversation, I think of her more and more each day and how pieces of me continue to bleed for my mother and my cousin’s heart.

To lose a sibling for me, with all of my creativity, would be unimaginable. To lose my mother, would be devastating. And as blasé as we try to be with ourselves, it is a near impossibility to pass “death is a part of life” of as a realistic mantra. If you are a person that had even an iota of your heart touched by a person that has since passed, you shed a tear…physically or otherwise.

My aunt, the athletic woman she kept herself to be until chemo and cancer robbed her off her physical presence, remains a competitive soul. After that conversation with her (curtailed by a sudden tiredness) I was left in pieces, sitting on my bed, wiping my eyes. Wondering what it was that was going on in her mind and more importantly, in her heart. Is she realizing that she may have suffered one relapse too many, or is she still giving the grim reaper a two fingered salute? What, strength pending, would she articulate and to whom? What are her last thoughts before bed and her first, each morning? Does she hate her God or give a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders and write it off as the hand she was dealt?

Is she angry, sad? Does she have regret and if so, what?

Does each eve feel like the last and is each morn a painful reminder of her physical state? Does time not even exist in her world and is it just a matter of piecing together moments?

One thing I do know though, she has shown me what the term “heart” truly is. I know it in a sporting sense, but in this very real life situation, she has been a true gladiator.

The strong hug I received from her in February, shortly after another one of those chemo sessions was not one of strength of God or advancement in medical technologies. It was one that came from the heart. To see a nephew that she wasn’t all that attached to, visit her at her home and speak to her as a long lost aunt that has just been away for a bit. She played the doting aunt and I was the good little nephew that constantly kept in touch. It mattered to neither of us that there were decades that slipped through the cracks…just that she wanted people to be sincere and that’s what I offered.

I am saddened that I never got to absorb more of her now. Who knows, if circumstances had offered us more time minus this context, I may not have even like her…but that’s if our hands were different.

As she lays in a nursing home, on oxygen permanently and shunning away visitors, I know for a fact of what a warrior she is. Her fight has been a long and exhausting affair and all I could wish for her is that she feels complete and utter bliss and peace in either a path to recovery or that alternative reality that we shall all be faced with one day.

Should a grieving family member or friend be given ones full attention when they wish to show affection/sympathy/or just to see that person? Or is it not one’s right to be dismissive of others in this time of personal discomfort?

Who has right?

This blogger’s thoughts have shifted to him. Being placed in a situation of personal terminal illness or one of instantaneous death like a car crash…I find myself digging up an age old fear: Did I do anything in my time here? To elaborate, did I manage to positively touch someone’s life? Did I validate them? Did I give them something that fed their soul? Well, only time will tell on that one, and when that day comes, may all that I have done that has caused harm, with whatever reasoning behind it, be temporarily forgiven…for if not then, then when else would the thoughts of a dying atheist be heard?

To my aunt…you validated, you invoked, you inspired…