A Sad Shock, and Life Goes On

I just got a terrible, sad shock this past week.  A friend (actually my partner's college roommate, who has known her since practically the year I was born - 1950) just found out that she has stomach cancer with only a few months to live.  Everyone was just blindsided by this.  I have had friends die of cancer (and I have friends who have survived cancer) but usually even the ones who eventually died had at least a year or more between diagnosis and death.  This was especially shocking because this friend was very healthy for her age (84) and had only been in the hospital once in her life (other than to have children): to have a hip replacement a few years ago.  And I am sure she went to doctors regularly.  I am sad for everyone.  For her, because she was such a vibrant, busy, productive person, and for her adult daughters, who are only forty-six and forty-nine, respectively, and for her three grandchildren, who are 13, 8, and 5.  I was thinking that they are the "grandparentless" generation because they are the first generation I know whose mothers and grandmothers did not give birth until their late 30s or early 40s.  My mother was 35 when I was born but her mother was only about 20 or 21 when she was born so I had grandparents until I was 28 or 31 (my grandmother died when I was 28 and my grandfather died when I was 31).

I have no idea if my friend wants social contact or not.  I am assuming that she does not want phone calls.  I find phone calls to be a nuisance generally because the person calling has no idea if it is a convenient time or not.  She sent me an email with the news, I wrote back, trying to be as supportive as I could, and she wrote me a thank you.  She hadn't wanted me to tell my partner (who has dementia) but I felt that I had to otherwise she would wonder why this friend hadn't called.  I also called another friend and told her.  I think I will write again to Abbie (my friend with cancer - not her real name) next week and just say I am thinking of her and that my partner sends her love.  If she responds fine, if not not.  I also thought I might send her an Easter card.  My partner is well enough to sign it (she doesn't sign any official documents any more; I sign all those) and we always used to visit Abbie on Easter Sunday in the early 90s when she lived on Long Island.  We would paint Easter eggs and she would make a big lunch.  I think her younger daughter was still living at home.

I am also sad for selfish reasons.  I had always assumed that Abbie would outlive my partner and that she could be helpful (even though about 5 years ago she moved across the continent) and supportive in some way.  Abbie was the last person about whom I felt that in a dire emergency, I could call on at any hour of the day or night.  There is no one left now.  Possibly my friend in Massachusetts although she has not been well (she is younger than I am).

As far as singing news is concerned (it hardly seems to matter now) I was asked to sing the Schubert "Ave Maria" at the funeral of the mother of one of the men from the church.  I was very flattered that he asked me.  Being asked to sing is such an "up" for me. Singing because I've asked and been given is not as sweet as having been asked.

On Good Friday I am singing the alto solo line in the quartet in two selections from the Beethoven Missa Solemnis. I still don't know if I'm singing on Maundy Thursday, but I have something ready so it can wait until the last minute.  If not I will probably sing on Trinity Sunday and in the summer.  And I have a little mini concert with my teacher in mid-May.  I am still working at following up with the two major venues that I hope to be able to sing in in the Fall.

Lastly, because I mentioned it in my last post, I got the biopsy results back about my partner's face, and what is there is not a squamous cell carcinoma.  They called it an actinic keratosis and she is going to get it frozen off on the 30th.