We all have our ways of dealing with serious illness, and I read the post from Leila’s friend about her positivity and hope for the future. That’s one way. Another way is to accept, look at your life and choices and come to terms with things in different way. Maybe it just depends on the individual disposition. I am nowhere near as positive or optimistic as Leila was, about anything, and when it was thought I was life-threateningly ill I immediately went into a kind of deep-space trance, even more obsessed than usual with the death of the sun, the transformation of matter in the universe, the fact that everything we are was once out there, etc. I don’t how long I’d have stayed there. Maybe I’m still there.

At lunch with a friend last week, she started talking about cancer and spirit to live and negative emotions and how that all plays into it. I love my friend dearly, but we disagree heavily on whether you can and how much you can control in life. I can’t accept that some people want to live more than others–and are therefore able to. I know some want to live more than others, but they also die, along with those who are in a different place. And what does “want to live” mean, exactly? My grandfather, a mean old bastard, lived to be 101. There was nothing loving, compassionate, open, or positive about this man. Would my friend say that it was his strong energy then that kept him alive? He’d had 2 strokes, 3 heart attacks, and 2 bouts of throat cancer. He was rather like a festering sore that simply won’t heal. When he died, his family felt sorry for the ground having to take him in. But I suppose it would be accurate to say he wanted to live.

Your hesitation to speak when being robbed really resonates with me. It’s an awareness, perhaps a new awareness, not of what’s happening, but of what could happen. Standing there, observing, understanding that your actions may or may not have any impact, that you truly are Waiting, in a sense, cracks open the world a little. There’s before, and there’s after. And it’s never the same.

Leila was beautiful, and her outlook on the future was beautiful too. That my friend might say it wasn’t enough makes my head hurt. Or that your sister or my father didn’t want it enough. Also crazy-making. Ah–sorry for this long, rather incoherent response. Often I read your stuff and like you, plan to respond, but for one reason or another never get my act together. But I’ve talked to you in my head many times, my friend Thanks for your article.