Dear,
dear, sweet Allison Clark McDaniel.
He is
my Morehouse Brother. We’ve been through a lot together, grown together, for
almost 25 years now. And she my Spelman Sister. They were perfect for each
other. Both Class of ’91. Two young boys, the oldest barely a year younger than
Ladybug.
She had
a seizure in her sleep and just never woke up. Dear Corey found her when her
when he went to wake her.
I’m
heartbroken.
Allison
began having issues, mainly seizures I believe, a couple years ago and I’m not
remembering all the details, but it seemed that they eased for a long while,
then kicked back up again a few months ago. She and I talked several times
about it over the last year. I don’t
think the doctors knew just what was going on; she and I had talked about it
several times over the last couple years… she had doctors’ appointments scheduled
to begin to find out the day she passed.
Struggling here. Truly. Deeply.
I’d
almost gotten used to the thoughts and ideas of how it would be for Juan and
Ladybug if my diseases run their supposedly inevitable course. Of the news that
yet another Lupus/Cancer Warrior whose lost their valiant fight. To the routine
of living with the real, up close and personal threat of death…. Like background
noise. I have found a way to get on with and lost in my life – the activities
of living, managing the minutia, and all that that means, especially with a very active 14 year old, and finding
ways to live the way I want to live in spite of.
Til the
news of dear, sweet, Allison.
I am
wrestling with, really struggling with the fact that I am quite sick. The rheumatologist,
the cardiologist, the hematologist, the oncologist, the pulmonologist, and the
neurologist seem to delight in reminding me of this on a very regular basis (especially
lately). That I shouldn’t be here. That not only should I not be here, living,
but should not be functioning as I am. Living
as I am. There are so many people around me who supposedly aren’t as sick as I am,
don’t have the same severity or level of disease and disease processes, aren’t
officially labeled ‘terminal’, and many who clearly look sicker than me… yet die. As a very
logical, 1+1=2 kind of person with a deep need for things to make sense and add
up, I am unable to reconcile this.
Why? People
say God has a plan for me and my life. That there’s work for me to do and
people to touch through my testimony.
Honestly?
This scares me. Between you and me, I don’t feel worthy. As much as I try to be
– staying positive when all I want to do is burn some sh*t down because of the
constant pain, my inability to do things like button/zip up my shirt, having to
pick and choose what I will do because ANYTHING I do requires an inordinate
amount of energy (that I just don’t have most of the time), struggling to
remember basic things; by being as pleasant and sweet as I possibly can be to
medical staff.
I feel
guilty actually. Especially, particularly now.
I suffer
from seizures also due to the trifecta of diseases that have descended and
attack my brain and central nervous system. They’re definitely better now, but
there were times when a good day was 6-10 seizures every day. But again, they’re better. We actually know why. We didn’t
yet with dear, sweet, Allison.
She’s gone,
I’m still here.
Why? And
I just don’t how to reconcile all of this. I get that it may not actually be for
me to get. That there’s clearly something bigger at play here than what my
ridiculously inept mind is able to grasp. I
really want to say something profound and deep, but I just can’t. I am fighting
this urge, desire, need to figure it out. I feel I need to so that I can carry
on with the fight on for Allison and all those who’ve lost their battle; that I’ll
have purpose. But do I really need to understand why I’m left, why I’m still
here, in order to continue fighting, living?
I’m
struggling here. I really am.
Be well family ♥
