My Foreign Cities--or Places I Don't Want To Go
Lately thinking about mortality. Maybe it's because I have an impending birthday. Maybe it's because we're beginning to talk about retirement--not actually doing it, but the difficult conversation of "Are we ready?". Then there was the devastating news this week of a friend a few years younger than myself who got a terrible prognosis. It was like a punch in the gut. It's hard to talk about. In a phone call with my daughter who is only just getting started with all the big life decisions, I told her about my friend. Though she empathized and asked how I was doing, it wasn't something she could relate too. not yet. As it should be. I remember as a kid my mom telling me about a friend of hers who had cancer. "In every part of their body." Back then cancer was synonymous with death. Most people didn't recover. I remember thinking that isn't this what old people are supposed to do. Die. But not in their late forties, is what I'd like...