So.  I’ve been a…*cough*…a mo…*swallow*…a moth…*cough, cough*…a mothe…*ahem*…a MOTHER (there I said it!) for three months.  Three months.  THREE.  MONTHS.  (Hey, Jenny Slater.)

Also?  Please don’t expect me to call Rocco “Dad.”  “Dad” lives in [...]]]> Apparently it’s going to take me more than three months to not squirm at the “m word.”  And no, I don’t mean moist.

So.  I’ve been a…*cough*…a mo…*swallow*…a moth…*cough, cough*…a mothe…*ahem*…a MOTHER (there I said it!) for three months.  Three months.  THREE.  MONTHS.  (Hey, Jenny Slater.)

Also?  Please don’t expect me to call Rocco “Dad.”  “Dad” lives in Virginia with “Mom” on a beautiful lake where they practice the hammer dulcimer and pottery respectively.  Actually, I don’t think there’s much respect involved with either of their approaches to those disciplines, but you know what I meant.  Or you didn’t.  Which is cool, too.  Just not as cool as a tutorial on how to make unicorn poop cookies.

Notice how I used the word “poop?”  And you cunts thought I couldn’t clean up my fucking language.  BooYAH.

Two guesses as to how much sleep I’ve had the past several nights.

So as I was saying, Paul is finally/already three months old.  I’ve been a…don’t make me say it again…for three whole months.  That’s longer than I underwent chemotherapy.  Truth be told, I’m not sure which three months felt longer.

Oh I know people hate it when I compare anything kid-esque to cancer.  It’s always, “How can you even say them in the same sentence?” or, “They aren’t the same thing at all!” or, “But a baby is so much more rewarding and fulfilling!  The prize for getting through these first few months is so much better.”

Yes, a baby is a wonderful, miraculous thing.  Point taken.  But not dying?  Pretty damn rewarding.  Pretty damn fulfilling.  Saving a life is right up there with creating one in my humble opinion.

I’ve tried to stop comparing them.  Really.  But it’s human nature to compare things, right?  I mean, you compare last night’s dinner at the trendy restaurant to the one you had last week at your favorite diner.  You compare your new apartment to your last apartment.  You compare your brother’s current girlfriend to the one he had a decade before.  So how can I not compare the two most difficult undertakings of my life?

If even just to remind myself of the differences.

I’m exhausted. (Add a check to the “like chemo” column.)  I can never decide if I’m ravenous or nauseous.  (Check.)    There’s all kinds of rules about what I can and can’t eat.  (Check.)  I have to use those plastic, old people pill organizers to keep all these meds straight.  (Check.)  I’m nervous about leaving the house and trying to accomplish normal people things like going to the grocery store.  (Check.)  We spend a lot of nights hysterically crying while seeking information on the internet.  (Sigh and check.)  My body is not my own.  (Double check.)

But my tumor never smiled or cooed.  Or if it did, it never showed up on any of the CT scans.  And much like when I finished those three months of chemo, I can see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.  I’m finally starting to understand why people do this voluntarily.  (Though I’m still going to need some time to wrap my brain around people doing this repeatedly.)

Ok that sounds overly harsh when I reread it.  I’m glad Paul is here.  Ecstatic.  Just like I’m glad I fought cancer.  And I would never, ever undo either of those things.  I guess I’m just saying they’re both hard.  Really, really hard.  But the good stuff usually is.

I showed an early version of this post to Rocco who found it most unsettling.  “Aren’t you worried Paul will see this some day and think we didn’t love him?”  If one little post like this could ever make Paul’s doubt that he is loved and cherished, then we will have made a whole mess of much bigger mistakes.  If there is one thing and one thing only I am confident I can give this child, it’s love.  If it’s two things, the other will be the ability to use curse words with creativity and aplomb.

“I just didn’t realize you were having second thoughts,” was Rocco’s second comment.  *sigh*  I suppose this isn’t coming out right.  I’m never going to be the gal that evangelizes motherhood, endlessly extolling how it saved me from a life of emptiness or some other Hallmarky bullshit.  That just ain’t me.  But that’s not saying I’m having second thoughts or regrets or Casey Anthony-esque thoughts.  I’m in this.  Hard.  He is of me.  My flesh.  My blood.  Shit y’all, I was willing to sacrifice my VAGINA for him long before I even met him.  I call that committed.

I’m also committed to recycling.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to treasure every moment of dry heaving while I scrub out the furry, green chunks previously known as mushroom soup that permanently attached themselves to the inside of a glass jar on the back, bottom shelf of the fridge.

After Rocco’s reaction to the post, I sent it to Mom for a second opinion.  “But Paul has brought you a happiness you’ve never known, right?”  So just in case there’s any doubt, I’ll say it for the record: he brings me joy.  Immense, indescribable joy.  Don’t make me write out all that other Lifetime Movie-esque blather that people expect moms to spout out ad nauseum, ok?  Just take my word for it.  You’ve seen how I dote on Mildred and SHE’S A FUCKING CAT.  OF COURSE this kid is my world.

Huh.  Maybe that’s just it.  The source of the discombobulation.  The unease.  The what-the-fuck-did-I-do-what-if-this-never-gets-any-easier-and-what-if-I-never-get-to-lock-myself-in-a-room-with-a-bottle-of-wine-and-my-favorite-pen-and-and-write-until-2am-again-ness.

Paul is my world now – my entire world.  I eat, sleep, and breathe him.  Everything else that was before has been nullified.  Everything that comes after is completely uncharted and foreign.  Like…say…I dunno…when my whole world was cancer.  Some things are just too big for there to be room for anything else.

And even though I know we moth….m words…aren’t supposed to say such things, I’ve just gotta.  Because that’s what I would have done three months ago.  Or three years ago – the last time I feared losing my voice.

….and then a friend sent me a link to this article.  Throw in a tiny dash of cancer and pretend I said all that instead, ok?

In summary, it’s a good thing The Overlord is adorable.  The end.

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Second, until I’m able to answer the question, “What did you do today?” with something more interesting [...]]]> So first?  I love that you crazy people don’t even need me to write new posts to keep the site going.  All you need is the mention of nipples and the comments just keep flying.  Well played, you pony-humping freakazoids.

Second, until I’m able to answer the question, “What did you do today?” with something more interesting than “Lactated,” I seem to have trouble writing new posts.  It’s not that I don’t have things to say, they just take to long to type one handed and brain dead. So here’s more substiuke.  I’m pretty sure this will make Dufmanno‘s day.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen it yet, Ethan Zohn – Survivor, survivor, and activist – is fighting the battle again.  And the crazy bastard is going to run in the NYC Marathon again.  The world needs wonderful, crazy bastards like him, damnit.  So maybe take a moment and think happy, healing thoughts for him, mmmkay?

You could even toast him.  It is motherfucking booze time, after all…

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Me:  Fuck.

Doctor:  There are certain risks for a vaginal birth with a baby of this size.

Me:  *deep breath*

Doctor:  Even if you can pass the head, you’ve still got to contend with the shoulders.  They can be damaged when we pull him out.  Or – if he gets stuck [...]]]> Doctor:  So your baby is in the 90th percentile.

Me:  Fuck.

Doctor:  There are certain risks for a vaginal birth with a baby of this size.

Me:  *deep breath*

Doctor:  Even if you can pass the head, you’ve still got to contend with the shoulders.  They can be damaged when we pull him out.  Or – if he gets stuck at the shoulders – he could develop palsy.

Rocco:  My co-worker’s wife delivered a twelve pound baby…

Me:  Roc?

Rocco:  …and he broke his shoulder coming out.

Me:  Please shut up, Rocco.

Rocco:  They had to twist him out like a football.

Me:  ROCCO!

Doctor:  Technically it’s not the shoulder that breaks in that situation.  It’s the clavicle.

Me:  Ok, how about you BOTH shut up?

So seeing as how Jabba the Baby seems to have inherited his father’s sense of direction and is clearly never going to find his way out on his own, we’re mounting a reconnaissance mission.  Tomorrow morning we’re sending in a team of navy seals.  Or a surgeon.  I’m just hoping the drugs are good enough I won’t be able to tell the difference.

On the upside, a c-section will give the doctor peeps a chance to check out my sketchy ovary.  Seems I have a cyst rivaling the size of Paul that they don’t like.  With my medical history, I reckon the wise thing to do is just chop it right out.  As my uncle Chuck would say, “Then there’s just one less place for cancer to grow.”

While I’m freaking out about over this development, my vagina is pretty excited.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s chanting “Viva the Vag” down there.

So the moral of the story is Paul should arrive tomorrow and I probably won’t be around the blogosphere for a little while.  I’ll try and get someone to post something letting you know all goes ok.

Miss you bitches already.

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I went to see the new movie, 50/50.

Just in case you don’t watch TV, or listen to the radio, or interact with any sort of [...]]]> I did it.  I wasn’t sure I’d be able to, but I did.  I would have probably chickened out if it hadn’t been for Rocco.  And now I’m super glad I did.

I went to see the new movie, 50/50.

Just in case you don’t watch TV, or listen to the radio, or interact with any sort of media of any kind, 50/50 is a cancer flick staring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen.  It’s based on the screenwriter’s (Will Reiser) real-life diagnosis at the age of 25.

Here’s the preview:

To be fair, I went into the movie with high expectations and hopes.  The preview and press all “looked” right, like it wasn’t going to be some creepy Lifetime made-for-TV thing nor some Three Stooges forced comedy thing.  But we all know how much a preview can deviate from a movie.  So I tried to prepare myself for the flick to suck.

But it didn’t.

At all.

In fact, it was pretty wonderful.

For some reason, the adjective that springs to mind is “tasteful.”  I don’t know how many people would use the word “tasteful” to describe a movie with no less than seven dick jokes, but I’m doing it anyway.  It wasn’t slapstick comedy or demeaning in any way.  Or forced.  There weren’t any obvious you-know-we-really-need-a-joke-here moments.  It was all just very natural and honest.

I think that’s one of the worst parts of cancer…well of any disease really.  It’s easy to stop seeing someone as a person and only see them as their sickness, their symptoms.  But if a person cracks jokes and likes mambo music before they get sick, they aren’t going to cease to crack jokes and like mambo music when faced with cancer.  They’re still the same person.  They don’t cease to exist.  And I thought 50/50 captured that perfectly.  (Spoiler alert: there wasn’t really any mambo music in the movie.  I made that up.)

The emotions were breathtaking.  Literally.  At several points I had to consciously force myself to start breathing again around the giant lump in my throat.  When the main character interacted with others…telling them, comforting them, apologizing for his diagnosis…well, it was all very real.

Like the laughs, the emotional scenes didn’t feel forced, either.  There was no tear jerking.  I didn’t feel manipulated by the film maker.  But of course, I still cried.  Rocco (my own, personal Seth Rogen) bawled – though he tried to do it quietly.  But we cried at very different things.  The story was allowed to unfold naturally, leaving each individual participant in the audience to find the parts that most resonated with them – patient or caretaker, family or friend, even just the casual acquaintance.

Because it’s not just for those directly affected by cancer.  It’s for anyone affected by life – anyone that’s felt alone, or smothered by a parent, or un-special, or deceived, or treasured, or grateful – anyone that’s ever FELT.

And while the main character in the movie has to face far too much of the ordeal on his own, the most beautiful relationship of the film is the bromance between him and Seth.  Again, 50/50 does a wonderful job of letting that speak for itself as it slowly develops and intensifies.  There’s no “cheapness” to the depiction.  It was just….lovely.

It was everything I want my book to be.

I hope the film does well – for both altruistic and selfish reasons.  First, as sad as it may be, more people watch movies than read books.  So I’m thrilled there’s a movie that fairly depicts the experience of today’s younger cancer patient.  I think it’s so important to be able to laugh in the face of fear – and this movie does just that, in the most beautiful way possible.  And selfishly, if it does well at the box office, it shows that there IS a market out there for Lymphomania, and that we as a society CAN talk about death and illness – we just want to do it on our terms.

So go see it.  And bring a hanky.

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And this year it’s especially hard because there’s been an awful lot of breast cancer awful close [...]]]> So it’s almost October – which used to signal apple cider, birthday cake, and Halloween for me.  Now it’s the month where I dread the arrival of pink-themed merchandise and magazines filled with heart-wrenching tales of loss to breast cancer.

And this year it’s especially hard because there’s been an awful lot of breast cancer awful close to home.  While most of the endings are happy – or at least the best you can hope for – some haven’t been.  One of my former co-workers died just over a week ago after ten years fighting with the disease.  Ten years.  Ten.

That’s a lot of fighting.

There’s something about babies that seems to bring around death.  Have you ever noticed that?  Rocco lost his grandfather last week.  Mine is expected to go any day now.  It gives a girl pause…

I said the same thing to Mom and she sighed in that resigned way of hers and said, “Well I know I’ve told you this a million times before, but while I was being born – I was the first of my siblings to be born in the hospital, you know – my mom’s father was just down the hall dying from an infected abscessed tooth.”

“Mom, I’ve never heard that story.”

“Never?  All the same – one comes into the world and one goes out.”

It just seems like a disproportionately high number of going outs to the coming ins – especially this time of year.  And I find it fascinating that so many people want to touch my belly and talk about every little detail of this baby stuff, but people don’t want to talk about sickness, death, cancer.  Like, ever.  Though both are equally important parts of life.

My friend Michelle posted a link earlier today to a beautiful article written by an Australian writer, Sara Douglass who just died from ovarian cancer.  I found it haunting, so I’m including some of it here.

Many years ago I did an hour long interview on Adelaide radio (with Jeremy Cordeaux, I think, but my memory may be wrong). The interview was supposed to promote one of my recent publications, but for some reason we quickly strayed onto the subject of death and dying, and there we stayed for the entire hour. I proposed that as a society we have lost all ability to die well. Unlike pre-industrial western society, modern western society is ill at ease with death, we are not taught how to die, and very few people are comfortable around death or the dying. There is a great silence about the subject, and a great silence imposed on the dying. During the programme a Catholic priest called in to agree with the premise (the first and last time a Catholic priest and I have ever agreed on anything) that modern society cannot deal with death. We just have no idea. We are terrified of it. We ignore it and we ignore the dying.

….

In that radio interview many years ago I spoke as a historian. Today I speak as one among the dying. Two years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. Six months ago it came back. It is going to kill me at some stage. Now everyone wants a date, an expected life span, an answer to the ‘how long have you got?’ question. I don’t know. I’m sorry to be inconvenient. I am not in danger of imminent demise, but I will not live very long. So now I discuss this entire ‘how we treat the dying’ with uncomfortable personal experience.

Now, with death lurking somewhere in the house, I have begun to notice death all about me. I resent every celebrity who ‘has lost their long battle with cancer’. Oh God, what a cliché. Can no one think of anything better? It isn’t anything so noble as a ‘battle’ gallantly lost, I am afraid. It is just a brutal, frustrating, grinding, painful, demoralizing, terrifying deterioration that is generally accomplished amid great isolation.

Let me discuss chronic illness for a moment. As a society we don’t tolerate it very well. Our collective attention span for someone who is ill lasts about two weeks. After that they’re on their own. From my own experience and talking to others with bad cancer or chronic illness, I’ve noticed a terrible trend. After a while, and only a relatively short while, people grow bored with you not getting any better and just drift off. Phone calls stop. Visits stop. Emails stop. People drop you off their Facebook news feed. Eyes glaze when you say you are still not feeling well. Who needs perpetual bad news?

This is an all too often common experience. I described once it to a psychologist, thinking myself very witty, as having all the lights in the house turned off one by one until you were in one dark room all alone; she said everyone described it like that. People withdraw, emotionally and physically. You suddenly find a great and cold space about you where once there was support. For me there has been a single person who has made the effort to keep in daily contact with me, to see how I am, how I am feeling, and listen uncomplainingly to my whining. She has been my lifeline. She also suffers from terrible cancer and its aftermath, and has endured the same distancing of her friends.

The end result is, of course, that the sick simply stop telling people how bad they feel. They repress all their physical and emotional pain, because they’ve got the message loud and clear.

…

My mother, who died of the same cancer which will kill me, kept mostly stoic through three years of tremendous suffering. But I do remember one time, close to her death, when my father and I went to visit her in hospital. She was close to breaking point that evening. She wept, she complained, she expressed her fears in vivid, terrifying words. I recall how uncomfortable I was, and how relieved I was when she dried her tears and once more became cheerful and comforting herself. I was twelve at the time, and maybe I should feel no guilt about it, but I do now, for I know all too well how she felt, and how much she needed comforting far more than me.

She died in her cold impersonal hospital room in the early hours of the morning, likely not even with the comfort of a stranger nurse with her, certainly with none of her family there.

The great irony is that now I face the same death, from the same cancer.

That is the death that awaits many of us, me likely a little sooner than you, but in the great scheme of things that’s neither here nor there. Not everyone dies alone, but many do.

Not everyone suffers alone, but most do it to some extent.

It is the way we have set up the modern art of death.

I am tired of the discomfort that surrounds the chronically and terminally ill. I am tired of the abandonment. I am tired of having to lie to people about how I am feeling just so I keep them around. I am tired of having to feel a failure when I need to confess to the doctor or nurse that the pain is too great and I need something stronger.

I am tired of being made to feel guilty when I want to express my fear and anguish and grief.

I am tired of keeping silent.

If you’d like to read the whole piece, it’s here.

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No, I didn’t go and publish a book without telling you.  I spent most of yesterday doing research on what other memoirs are out there, and [...]]]> “This book was funny and filled with details that really made these stories come alive. Smart, intelligent, and hilarious collection of essays. Also, I learned a lot about vaginas.”

No, I didn’t go and publish a book without telling you.  I spent most of yesterday doing research on what other memoirs are out there, and I stumbled upon that review for this book.  A girl can but dream of receiving such a kick ass review.

But my dear Interwebz, things are looking really promising!

Who has two thumbs, a uterus that doubles as a sack full of elbows, and a…wait for it….LITERARY AGENT?!?!?!

It's hard to take a picture of yourself and include both thumbs, FYI.

I’m so excited I could piddle.  Granted, that sensation may be due to the fact that Captain Elbows keeps confusing my bladder with a Hippity Hop, but I’m pretty sure I’m that excited, too.

I’m signing with The Folio Literary Agency, specifically with a brilliant gal by the name of Shawna Morey.  And I’m not just saying she’s brilliant because she described my book as “extraordinary.”  (But it doesn’t hurt.  At all.)  I’ve actually worked with her in the past – back when we were both much younger and spent a whole mess of time at Don Hill’s -so I know how smart she is…and how dedicated…and I’m just so stoked to have her on my side…and did I mention I’m excited?

*attempts to bend in half to lower head between knees and breathe evenly but is thwarted by giant, pointy watermelon someone smuggled into uterus, reaches for paper bag instead*

So now is the part where I start whoring about.  I still need a publisher, see?  And while that’s mostly Shawna’s gig, I want to make it as easy and juicy for her as humanly possible.  So I was hoping maybe you guys would help me out a little?

I’ve made a Facebook Fan page for Lymphomania.  Would you mind clicking on over and giving it a “like” so potential publishers can see what I already know with every fiber of my being – my readers are latex-wearing-pony-humping-freakazoids and beyond awesome?

I suppose you can lick it, too, if that’s what you’re into.  Lord knows I’m not one to judge.  Just clean the screen afterwards.

You know. I always have a hard time with words that are wicked similar like that – lick and like, scan and scam, fetch and feltch.  I switch them all the time.  It can get pretty messy.

Focus, Elly.

If you’re feeling SUPER supportive, you go right ahead and tweet/post/scream/tattoo on your forehead about the book.  I won’t stop you.  There will probably even be more licking involved.

I can’t help but be a little floored by how lucky I am with the timing of all this.  Hopefully Shawna and I can put together a solid proposal before THE OVERLORD blows my bits out and then she can work at landing a publishing deal while Rocco and I are elbow deep in liquid feces!  Oh the glamor of it all!

So cross your fingers.  Sorry in advance for all the slutting I’m about to do.  And thanks for everything.  You guys seriously rock my face off.

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I’m naming this one Artemis.  I’d estimate he’s about the size of a semi truck.  I know, I know the God was a chick, but it’s my hemorrhoid and I’ll decide what his gender is.  And HE is a total dick.  Ergo…

Of course, all the over-the-counter stuff used to [...]]]> You know what really chafes my ass?  Hemorrhoids.

I’m naming this one Artemis.  I’d estimate he’s about the size of a semi truck.  I know, I know the God was a chick, but it’s my hemorrhoid and I’ll decide what his gender is.  And HE is a total dick.  Ergo…

Of course, all the over-the-counter stuff used to treat these flaming balls of agony says “Do not use while pregnant.”  So I suppose you can add a mark to the cancer column on our “pregnancy vs cancer” comparison chart.  At least when I’d get them during chemo, I could turn to pharmaceuticals for help.  The only thing I can find at this point is witch hazel.

And here’s an important fact for those of you that lack a vast knowledge of all things witch hazel.  No matter how much it might look like rubbing alcohol, smell like rubbing alcohol, taste…no I didn’t try that (wrong kind of alcohol) – they are NOT the same thing.

So one really should never, ever, EVER set them on the same shelf of the poorly lit medicine cabinet and try to apply some while in a hurried, sleep-deprived state.

Because then one might have to explain to her husband (when he rushes in at the sounds of her screaming, “Bring the fire extinguisher!”) why she’s crouched in front of the bathroom sink with her ginormous target panties stretched between her ankles, fanning her crotch with one hand and flinging handfuls of water onto her *ahem* region with the other while muttering, “Now I know why it’s called witch hazel – fuckers.”

Then one might need to spend the next several hours horizontal, limiting any movement to only occasional moans of agony.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

One might instead choose to store the rubbing alcohol in another place entirely – like a basement den of torture, for example.  Also, one might not be able to sit in this desk chair any longer.  Again, hypothetically speaking.  *whimper*

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But then I looked at Rocco practically sleep-walking through his one day off from work, trying to wrap-up a plumbing project so we could catch the train to [...]]]> I didn’t go.  For multiple reasons.  I struggled with it all day, honestly.  Each rain drop that pelted against the window felt like another reason I needed to go.

But then I looked at Rocco practically sleep-walking through his one day off from work, trying to wrap-up a plumbing project so we could catch the train to Manhattan.  And Paul decided to pummel my cervix with his decidedly pointy elbows in a friendly reminder that my ankles probably shouldn’t be bigger than my head.  And I decided, chicken or not, to stay home, to let this loss go, to not feel guilty for still being here, but feel grateful instead.

I swear, for the first time in three solid days, the sky stopped leaking long enough for the sun to emerge for the briefest of moments.

Then the Nina Simone mix on Pandora served up this song.

And then I looked at my email and found a wealth of supportive comments there waiting.  If I could buy each and every one of you a margarita, I totally would.  Thank you.

Everything just might be OK, after all.

Try A Little Something Different

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But this guy isn’t.  Most of you probably won’t even remember him.  After all, that post is from nearly two years ago.

Two years.

That means two years of chemo and fear and pain and [...]]]> I’ve got no jokes today, kids.  I’m more than a little heartbroken.  And don’t panic – I’m fine (physically anyway) and so’s the parasite.

But this guy isn’t.  Most of you probably won’t even remember him.  After all, that post is from nearly two years ago.

Two years.

That means two years of chemo and fear and pain and surgery and transplants and waiting and false hope and broken promises and hospital rooms and empty eyes and shattered hearts.  And now he’s just…gone.

And I can’t quite explain why it upsets me so.  I met him only that one time, but he’s haunted my thoughts nearly every day these past two years.  Every time I was at Sloan for an exam or a scan, I’d consider taking a field trip up to the in-patient floors on the off-chance he might be there, that I could offer some kind of support.  But I never actually did it.  I’d get to that elevator, sometimes even get in it, and then I just couldn’t push the button, couldn’t face those long white hallways, couldn’t face the masks, the socks, the IV poles – any of it, really.  And every times I slunk out of those automatic doors and back onto the busy streets of Manhattan, I’d assure myself he wasn’t there, that he was doing just fine, and that next time I’d find out if he was there before my appointment so maybe I could bring him something nice from the outside.

But I never did.

And now I never will.

I’m going to his memorial this evening.  Well, I’m going to try and go to his memorial this evening.  We’ll see if I have the will power to actually walk myself in there.  It’s going to be hard to look at those kids.  I feel like I lied.  At the very least, I was complicit in the lie.

Everything is far from alright.

But I truly feel in my heart of hearts that being there is the right thing to do.  Because there’s nothing else I can do for him at this point other than remember him.  And really, in the end, I think that’s what we all want most – not to just disappear – not to be forgotten, at least not immediately.

I don’t even know his last name.

Yet I will never forget him.  And hopefully someday, if I ever get this book published, people will read the chapter about him and he will fold a tiny piece of himself into their hearts and souls, too.  And somehow he won’t disappear completely.

But today…right now…all I feel is the hole of him missing.  And just like the hard lump of my scar tissue, it’s right over my heart.  And I hope with all of that aching heart that this song was true for him.

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