Two years on September 5th from breast cancer. I wrote a bit about it here. I've basically been a mess since she died.

I remember you writing to me when I lost my dad. It meant so much. Your essay is beautiful, Rayne. So beautiful. You know, when my dad died, I already knew I'd never get over it. I was extremely close to my maternal grandmother. I had lost plenty of other people I loved, but save my Nana, none so close. She died in 1992, and it is as fresh now as ever. But being prepared for pain by other pain isn't really much of a comfort.

Awww, Rayne. My mom died of cancer right after I got out of college. The pain gets less, but the loss never really does.

That's the thing. They leave a hole. You learn where it is. You learn not to fall blindly into it most of the time. But even on your best days, you are still always walking around a hole.

edited: Because while I want to acknowledge that sense of loss, I don't want to imply that the grieving and the life-mess is continual. It's not. Things get better and eventually you're able to fold your life around that absence and make it whole again.

edited here also -

Yes, to this. I didn't want to imply what Hec didn't want to imply.

Oh, Hec, that's beautiful.

t undark

I've had two very close friends die. I'd had relatives die, and some acquaintences, but neither of those touched me quite like my two friends.

One died back in October of '97. It was quite sudden (it's always sudden). She died in her sleep, from what they called bi-lateral, lower lobe congestion, which basically meant that the lower third (roughly) of each lung had become so congested that she could no longer breathe. She'd always been asthmatic, and had just dealt with a bout of pneumonia. We thought she was out of the woods. She was twenty-seven (I think).

The other friend I had known since high-school. He helped me break out of my shell, and was a major contributor to the person I am today. He had been one of my closest friends for over half my life.

He smoked like a chimney, and had done so since before I met him, and came from a family with a history of heart disease. He also served in the Air Force, and had been exposed to weapons grade plutonium more than once. On top of everything else, he was easily the worst bi-polar I have ever known, and was taking heavy doses of lithum among the drugs in his cocktail.

On August 26th, 2001, he dropped dead of heart failure in the wee hours of the morning while sitting at his computer.

The pain fades, but the hole will always be there. And most of the time I can think of each of them, and miss them, but in a very pleasant way, though maybe a little bittersweet.

But every now and then, something reminds me, and it hurts like the day I heard the news.

I don't know if that ever goes away, and I distinctly remember with both of them not wanting the pain to stop, not wanting to let them go.

I don't know why I was moved to poast about this, save that it matched the topic.

I bawl like a baby every single time I watch The Body, and while I don't feel the need to overdo it, or watch it obsessively, I do watch it every now and then, when it comes on.

That episode does a very good job of capturing exactly how it felt.

t back to dark

I'd had relatives die, and some acquaintences, but neither of those touched me quite like my two friends.

Several have hit me hard, but for different reasons.

My first -- grownup? -- brush with death was in 8th grade. A classmate had been out sick for a while with pneumonia or something similar. Then one morning, the teachers announced to us that Pam had died the night before. That day, it was so quiet throughout our section of the school that you could have heard a pin drop.

Several days later, I went to Pam's visitation. Ended up standing next to a classmate who couldn't have stopped crying if her life depended on it.

Shortly after I started law school (and by that, I mean the first weekend after classes started), an acquaintance was kidnapped. The case got a lot of publicity locally. About a week later, a suspect was arrested. He led the police to her body. Three years later, I fell apart watching a student film about a woman being attacked in a local alley.

The one that really affected my viewing of "The Body," though, was Hubs' mother. She had originally been diagnosed with cancer about the time she moved in with us (in '93). We got her through surgery and chemo. Eventually, she was well enough to live on her own, as long as someone (usually us) ran her on errands every weekend.

Her cancer came back in '98. We all (her kids and in-laws) took turns keeping an eye on her after each round of chemo. In mid-March 2000, she was told that the cancer was terminal. Two weeks later, she died with four of her five kids, several hospice workers, and me at her bedside. Well, sort of -- about 3:15, Hubs got the idea to order pizza for us. It arrived, and people went down to eat. I stayed with her until her youngest came back to give me a chance at food. She died not 30 seconds after I left the room.

11 months later, "The Body" aired. It's the one BtVS ep Hubs refuses to watch again.

Rayne, I remember your essay from back when you wrote it. I had been a frequent visitor to your site and I sent you an email at the time, expressing my condolences and wishing you well. I was a Bronzer then, and hadn't found the Buffistas, and I was touched by your words and wanted to send some sympathetic thoughts along.

I didn't mean to bring this thread down. I think it's amazing that an episode of television can have this much of an effect on people. Thanks for all the comforting words. This time of year is difficult for me. I keep thinking two years ago today my mom was alive and living life to the fullest.

So, how 'bout that Buffy, eh?

I didn't mean to bring this thread down.

You didn't. We periodically reflect on mortality. Then we talk about Justin Timberlake and the sex lives of echidnas.

So, how 'bout that Buffy, eh?

Rockin' good show! But my biggest Buffy-related tear jerk is in IWRY.

But my biggest Buffy-related tear jerk is in IWRY.

"I felt your heart beat" *sob*.

Though "I can't breathe, Will. I can't breathe" is up there too.

Istanbul. I'm pretty sure Istanbul is the only time _Buffy_ ever made me tear up at first viewing.

"I felt your heart beat" *sob*.

For me it was, "It's not enough time!"