the lunar eclipse and the suckiness called cancer

I wanted to wake this morning to a red stain on the sky—a remembrance of the lunar eclipse that graced this universe last night.

But there was only sunshine which is color enough when I think about the dark days of this winter and its seemingly never ending grip on the land and the people living here.

We stood outside in freezing cold temperatures and took in the shadow of this planet spreading browns and reds over the surface of the moon. As we stood there looking up into a perfectly clear night sky, I could not help but think about kk’s grandma C and the reality that she will not be here the next time a lunar eclipse unfolds in December 2010.

On Tuesday, K’s grandma went into the hospital cause her stomach was in serious pain. On Wednesday the doctors determined it was her gall bladder, so they operated. Her gall bladder had spewed out stones into her abdominal cavity, so the surgeon poked around and happened upon a huge mass in her pancreas. He took a biopsy of it, but let the family know that it is most likely cancer, and no matter what it is, it is inoperable.

So, once again cancer comes a calling kk’s family. Her dad is so sad and pissed. His immediate family consists/ed of two kids, a wife, a brother, and a mama. His wife gets cancer and dies; his brother gets cancer and dies; his ma gets cancer and then will die. She is old, but does it have to be fucking cancer? A family can only take so much of the disease. Why not a heart attack or a car wreck?

Kk is so sad cause she wanted to have a child that her grandma actually got to hold… Maybe just maybe by some miracle (I only believe in them about 1% of the time) that can still happen. But tumors on pancreases don’t make for long life spans, able bodies, or holding.

We are heading up to Cheboygan, MI tomorrow morning to hang with kk’s dad, brother, aunt, and grandma c. Mostly, we are going for her dad, at this point, cause grandma c is all doped up and out of it and her dad needs us.

At least the lunar eclipse was like a divine intervention last night. It loomed above us--a red shadow creeping slowly across the brightness of the earth’s moon; a beauteous reminder of our ant-like size amidst a vast and sprawling universe; a reminder of my thankfulness for life and being able to get mad at diseases and death and still being able to come back to the acceptance of this cycle of life we are bound to.

(We are trying to make it back by Sunday morning to inject some sperms, but with the stress of impending death of dear loved one hanging over our hearts, perhaps we should not even try this time around…)