Closing Thoughts

I think this will be my last entry in this blog.

Thanks to everyone who attended and watched the ceremony. We are so grateful for the outpouring of love from all our communities.  I want to leave you with three things:

1. First...

• I want to tell you about an impression that many of you can relate to: Susan was barely over 5 feet tall, but her personality was so much bigger giving the impression that she was actually a towering, physical force. 
• I remember seeing her interact with her co-workers in social gatherings, usually men 6'-2" and taller, and they would literally cower in her presence. 
• If I hadn’t seen Susan in a while or saw her in some unexpected context, her diminutive stature would take me by surprise, but it would also take my breath away:
• I’d think to myself, “Whoah, who is that petite, smoking hot babe coming down the escalator…”
• And then I’d come to my senses and realize: “Oh yeah! That’s my wife!”
• Here is an example of Susan dominating the media.

2. Second...

• Juxtapose that larger-than-life image with Susan’s last hours on Earth probably weighing less than 90 pounds: fragile, vulnerable, her blazing light diminishing.
• I want to share details of Susan’s last hours of life with you:
• As many of you have followed on the blog, everyone, including Buddy, our Sheltie, knew she was finally dying.
• That last night, as I lay on the floor next to her hospital bed, I could hear her breathing over the oxygen concentrator, but at some point in the night, I couldn’t hear her breathing anymore. 
• I initially panicked thinking I had missed her dying, but her breathing had just become too faint and shallow to hear over the concentrator. 
• I lay back down, closed my eyes, and started practicing a yoga breathing technique called pranayama.
• With this technique, I truly believed I was connecting with Susan as I talked her through my breath, sharing my breath with the last breaths of her life. 
• Through this connection, at some point, I somehow knew it was time:
• I got up, went upstairs to get Mina and Dylan, and we came back downstairs and shared those last moments of her life. 
• It was the most spiritual moment of my life: the sorrow, the pain, the relief…and the goodbye.

3. Finally…

• “They” say that time heals all wounds. For those of us who have cared for a significant other through cancer, we have a secret: “Cancer heals all wounds.”
• My favorite literary theme involves The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, where a protagonist is sleeping comfortably under the snow, but is stagnant, numb, and afraid to wake up and face the real elements of life. 
• Metastatic cancer jolts you to face those elements: In the process of being exposed to pain and suffering, petty, insignificant things become just that: petty and insignificant, and every day you cherish different elements in your relationship. 
• While we wouldn’t wish terminal cancer on anyone, it is Susan and my wish that you all climb out of your warm snowbanks:
• Expose yourselves to the raw, real elements of life which really allow you to cherish all your relationships: Romantic, platonic, and everything in between. 
• We all have secrets and past indiscretions: they pale in comparison to the fullness of the life we can continue to share with our loved ones: forgive your loved ones, but more importantly, forgive and love yourself.
• Live in the moment...to its fullest. Seize life while we are still on this Earth...