From my book "After the Wake...Stories from Palliative Care".
Joe was 58 when he started actively dying from cancer and this was about the same time he was diagnosed. He was shocked at first, but then, didn't mind.
He said he would never have had any kind of reconciliation with his 5 children except for the fact that he was dying.
He was grateful they turned up and everyone wished everyone, including him, well, as was the truth of his and their time being.
He traded in his Subaru Forester and bought an Alfa Romeo, knowing that neither he nor the Alfa, unlike the Subaru, needed an extended warranty, or needed to be reliable.
His wife loved him anyway and she was a competent enough person to make a living, as she always had.
He had no insurance and some debts...but there would always be someone who wanted to take the Alfa off his hands for almost nothing anyway. He was a man of reasonable virtue and reasonable reach, as he described himself.
He offered his body to forensic science at a local university, so they would take it and chop it up etc and cover the costs for his Memorial Service.
He was relieved, in a way, because the only way he could really afford to have a life he valued would have been to keep working until he was 80, as an engineer, and he never liked work at all, much anyway. He always just preferred not being at work, whenever he could, and he liked not thinking about things more than was necessary.
Joe died within the year as 99.9% with his diagnosis, do, and always have done, no matter what they say on TV, and he never once had 'a battle with cancer', and he really didn't mind it at all.
He said he would never have had any kind of reconciliation with his 5 children except for the fact that he was dying.
He was grateful they turned up and everyone wished everyone, including him, well, as was the truth of his and their time being.
He traded in his Subaru Forester and bought an Alfa Romeo, knowing that neither he nor the Alfa, unlike the Subaru, needed an extended warranty, or needed to be reliable.
His wife loved him anyway and she was a competent enough person to make a living, as she always had.
He had no insurance and some debts...but there would always be someone who wanted to take the Alfa off his hands for almost nothing anyway. He was a man of reasonable virtue and reasonable reach, as he described himself.
He offered his body to forensic science at a local university, so they would take it and chop it up etc and cover the costs for his Memorial Service.
He was relieved, in a way, because the only way he could really afford to have a life he valued would have been to keep working until he was 80, as an engineer, and he never liked work at all, much anyway. He always just preferred not being at work, whenever he could, and he liked not thinking about things more than was necessary.
Joe died within the year as 99.9% with his diagnosis, do, and always have done, no matter what they say on TV, and he never once had 'a battle with cancer', and he really didn't mind it at all.
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