First re-birth, and now death...

A year ago last May, an event occurred that has fundamentally altered the trajectory of my life. My father-in-law was diagnosed with lung cancer. Now at first, they were going to do surgery and expected that they would be able to remove the cancer, but once they got in, realized that it had spread to places not reachable by surgery. It was incurable. The next ten months we lived with this knowledge and yet knowing it and experiencing it turned out to be two totally different things. Death is like birth in this regard, you can watch others go through it, mentally prepare yourself for it, but nothing can ever make you understand how it rocks your world until you go through it. It's just the way it is. We watched as my father-in-law endured the sickness that comes with chemotherapy, the radiation, further surgery to stop some bleeding, and his subsequent decline. It happened in front of our eyes, and he died surrounded by loved ones. I was one of those loved ones, and although I was with him as his life ended, I still find it hard to wrap my brain around him being gone. GONE, gone. As in never coming back. And yet, the weeks and days leading up to his death were beautiful somehow. I have never felt so "present" in my own life. The spectre of death brings life into such sharp focus. I never understood how people could work in palliative care, but like the beginning of life, there is something very sacred and special about the time at the end of one's life too. Although I am sad, I'm really glad that we were here with him. There is a hole in the fabric of my life now. Although he was not a part of my day to day routines, there was security in knowing he was there. Something is fundamentally different now. I'm different now.