I was at work today in my "office" -a shared table in the library office when the librarian came in angry and frustrated. I always try to be polite and listen if she needs it-she has had a rough spot losing a parent over the holidays.
Apparently, she decided that if her husband has cancer, she is leaving him. She told me how she refuses to see another person through cancer and how it has made such a difficult time for her. So, she wasn't going to do that again. I was stunned speechless. She looked at me and said, "Pretty heartless, huh?" I didn't answer. She said she meant it and went on for a bit more about how he was on his own if he was terminally ill. On and on.
I told her that seemed really selfish and I asked her if she would want to be alone if she had cancer. She didn't answer me.
I could have said a million things but didn't. Sometimes I just don't know what to say.
8 comments:
Difficult position to be in. It's probably important for her to be able to say something like that even if ultimately it wouldn't be true. I'm guessing that she was speaking her fear and the pain of having shut down after a difficult loss. Hypothetical reality and real reality are usually different.
Listening is probably what she needed and it says a lot about you that she felt safe enough to say something so socially unacceptable and not be drawn and quartered for it.
I guess the other question that comes to my mind is in her imaginary hypothetical... is her feeling that she would not be able to go through it because she is heartless or because she has a heart so broken at the moment that she doesn't think it could handle anything more. Or maybe she wishes she could be heartless because it hurts to much to be where she is...
Hard conversation to participate in, though. Being human can hurt so much sometimes....
I would hope she was just kind of blowing off some frustration type of steam in saying that about her husband. I know after watching what my Mom went through the week before she died - the only time we knew she had cancer -and then, 9 years later, watching a very good friend die of cancer, I had told my ex-brother-in-law at the time if ever I were diagnosed with cancer, I wouldn't want all the chemo and treatments and surgeries and endless rounds of doctors and hospitals and such. And yet, when I was diagnosed five years ago with cancer, my doctor announced to me, quite matter-of-factly, "you will do this, then this, then that, then more of this, etc., etc., etc. And you know what I did? I did exactly what my doctor said. Sometimes, things happen to us, we see and say things we may mean at that moment in time but when push comes to shove, we take a different road than previously we had believed we would travel. Hopefully, that is where she is in her thoughts right now.
Soon after my Mom died from breast cancer my sister's boyfriend became very ill. She had many a meltdown from frustration and exhaustion, she swore she'd never watch someone struggle again.
As raven and jeni said - most of that was blowing off steam and finding a way to voice the fears she didn't want to face.
I'm glad you said what you felt, that is surely exactly what she needed, perhaps it was what she was searching for.
I think you said the exact right thing.
How could anyone do that?!! (Shaking my head here)
Wow, that's shocking. I can understand how she feels - I've seen enough people struggle with terminal illness and end up dying, though I've never been a primary caregiver - but I hope the others here are right, that she just needed to vent her anger and frustration. And good answer, by the way. It's just what I would hope I'd say in the same situation.
Hey, Linda... I wrote something for you over at Raven's Nest. I also did a Heads or Tails Tuesday thing so I have a feeling nobody is going to notice it if I don't mention it.
Wow!! I'm speechless. Her comments show just how much she was hurt by losing a parent.
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