MIxed Feelings

I have mixed feelings this morning. On the one hand I am sad because my friend J who had ALS passed away early this morning. However, on the other hand I am happy that J no longer has to suffer.

I am so glad that a week and a half ago my son K drove me to J's home so I could visit him. J could no longer move, or talk. He lay in bed closed his eyes listening to my stories about our trip to Iowa. Every so often he would try to smile. Then last week when I called him I was told that he was under sedation and that his lungs were filling up with fluid. So I knew the end was near.

I knew J was suffering. He and I loved to talk to each other and now he couldn't even do that. One day this past spring P drove me over to his home and he and I sat outside enjoying the afternoon sun. Later his wife told me that it was funny watching the two of us talking. I guess it might have been. There we sat wheelchair to wheelchair, nose to nose, J would talk for a while until he grew too tired to talk and then I would talk until I grew too exhausted to talk. By that time J would be rested up and so we would begin the cycle again.

I will miss J, while I have lots of friends; I find it difficult to talk to non-handicapped people. It may be that I feel they have a hard time relating to what living with a handicap means, so we shy away from talking about everyday frustrations. So while I talk about a lot of subjects with my non-handicapped friends, the talking is mostly about non-handicapped things. Things like fishing, golfing, yard and house work. But never about the how we find ways of dealing with or laughing at living with a handicap.

So while I will really miss J, I am really glad to have had J as a friend. He helped me see something's in my life in a better perspective.