Where will you go? I'll miss you so...

The cancer is back and it’s in Carol’s liver. I had just arrived home from Alex’s; we’d gone to Ikea and I'd bought a new blanket for my bed, one to replace the one I’d given Carol this summer. I went into the kitchen to show Mom and Mom said we needed to talk. She sat me down in the living room and told me “Carol has cancer in her liver and they can’t do anything about it.” I cried. I was surprised. I couldn't look at Dad. I didn't want him to see me upset and not strong even though he knows I am the softest. Somehow I thought she’d beat it it, that it was gone and that was it. I said, “Ok.” Got up, went downstairs and slammed my door harder than I knew I could. I wanted to scream and felt it rise, but stopped it. I wanted to break something and looked for something to break but did nothing instead. Instead, I felt broken and I lay down on my bed and just cried. And then stopped. And then cried again.

I went to visit carol today at her daughter’s house. We went for a walk along Grispa under all the maples whose leaves have turned fluorescent red. It reminded me of the poem I wrote for Grandpa and I wondered the same things I'd wondered about Grandpa all centered around the though of 'when did you get old?' I asked Carol if she’d known it was back before the doctor’s told her and she said she felt something was off, and denied it. I knew she’d know. I think if something foreign is in your body, you are aware of it. I asked her if it hurt, if she was angry, if she was ready. She brushed off my first question, said she wasn’t angry or in denial so that I could skip that whole phase, and said she was ready. She said that for about the last 6 months, she felt like she was finished. Not in a hopeless sort of 'I give up way' but more like a sigh of relief over completing a big task. She said she felt no overwhelming sense of something left to be accomplished. She tried to find something, but overall, she felt done. She says she’d like to stay but she’ll go when she’s supposed to. I told her I wanted her to say, and know that it’s selfish but that if she needs to go,