Love is watching someone die

Jonathan McLeod

Jonathan McLeod is a writer living in Ottawa, Ontario. (That means Canada.) He spends too much time following local politics and writing about zoning issues. Follow him on Twitter.

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9 Responses

  1. Miss Mary says:

    Oh my gosh… it’s so sad… and happy.Report

  2. North says:

    Beautiful J-Mac, I lost my dad to leukaemia too but it was relatively swift when the end came.Report

    • Jonathan McLeod in reply to North says:

      I’m sorry to hear that, North. Initially, it looked like my mom had beaten the cancer. She was first diagnosed and treated late in 2000 and seemed to be rebounding. In the end, she certainly suffered far longer than anyone would have wanted, but, at the same time, she really wanted to make it to my sister’s wedding.

      We were never sure she was going to make it. And then when she survived that long, we weren’t sure if she’d be able to attend and, if she did, how long she’d be able to stay. As it turned out, she made the service, the photos and a good deal of the reception. It went far better than anyone could have hoped. It was, quite likely, her last good day. Which, despite all the other sadness, is wonderful.Report

  3. zic says:

    This amazes me.

    Viewed as symbol used in story, it’s an almost magical gift from your mother to your future wife; a passing on of the loving care and guarding of you.Report

    • Jonathan McLeod in reply to zic says:

      Most definitely. I hesitate to attach too much meaning to the situation, but this observation is undeniable.Report

      • zic in reply to Jonathan McLeod says:

        I had a sort of similar thing happen. They say that after two years without a period, women have finished going through the ‘change.’ I was in Guatemala at the two year mark, my sweetie and I ran away and joined a circus performing in Central America for a few weeks.

        Had I been home, it would have been a celebration under the stars with my pagan friends. Instead, I was at a home owned by Americans who’d lived in Guatemala for decades, and who’s children had been born and grown up there. I was thinking about the two year mark; when a woman came up and sat down beside me; heavily pregnant (the wife of one of the owner’s sons.) Since, I’ve had this deep feeling that I gave her my fertility; not literally, of course, but story-symbolic; passed something of me as a child bearer, a guardian of small babies, to her.

        And it was such a relief, too. Live is much easier being off the hormonal roller coaster.Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    I can certainly understand her question at the end, but marriage is (among other things, of course) an agreement to go through stuff like that *TOGETHER*.

    You two had one of the big ones already down.Report