A Friend in Need

by

It’s been years since I’ve been at home in Seattle in early September.  It’s lovely.  The back yard is mostly still lush green with just bare tips of red starting to show up on the Japanese maples.

I have to say it’s very strange to be at home during on-sale week, but it was a good decision.  My shoulder isn’t up to being out on the road.  I’m getting a little more range of motion, but it seems to be one step forward and two steps back.  However, while I’m here whining about my ailing shoulder, one of my good friends is looking down the barrel at a recurrence of breast cancer.  So quit your bitchin’, Judy.

I know that people come to my blog on Friday mornings for a little bit of sweetness and light, but I’m just not feeling it today.  What I’d really like to do is haul off and smack somebody, because this is SO unfair.

My friend stood by her man, a Viet Nam vet, during the ten years he fought a losing battle with Agent Orange induced brain cancer.  She put her life and ambitions to one side, in favor of caring for him.  This should be her time now.  Instead, she’s left to fight this fight on her own.  She has kids, but that’s not the same as having a partner—someone who has your back no matter what.

I’m pissed that the cancer-inhibiting drugs that have made her life miserable for the past year DIDN’T DO THEIR JOB!!!  And I have no idea how she will decide to deal with this—whether she’ll dig in and fight tooth and nail or if she’ll step away and opt for as much quality of life as there is out there.  Those are decisions she’ll have to make with her kids, her doctors and her God—because she is a woman of faith.  Has always been a woman of faith.  And if I were in her shoes, I have no idea how I’d choose, either.  Not my business to say.

But I’ve been sitting here thinking about her today—thoughts and prayers, as it were.  I know there are people who sneer at the very idea of “thoughts and prayers,” but I’m not one of them.  And I know there are plenty of people among my readers who don’t, either.

So I’m putting my friend’s story out there today, so people can add her to their prayer lists.  Her name’s Loretta, in case you’re interested, but you didn’t really need to have that information.  I’m sure the Man Upstairs already knows.

16 thoughts on “A Friend in Need”

  2. Sending prayers and positive thoughts for your friend Loretta and her family as well as for you and your shoulder.
    Loretta will be added to my daily prayer list. Prayer and my faith in God and His presence on my life gets me through each and every day. He is capable of miracles and I pray that God will perform one for Loretta. It seems so unfair for someone to sacrifice for another so much and then have to deal with their own suffering from an illness. I know life is not always fair, but you wonder just how much one person can take. I guess you have no choice but to try to put it all in God’s hands and try to live your life to the fullest you can.
    With God’s help and friends and even strangers prayers, I know I try to look up and see the rainbows after a rain storm instead of looking down and only seeing the mud puddles!

  3. Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough after a preventable calamity, such as a school shooting, but they may help in a case like your dear friend’s. So Loretta has mine. My mama is also fighting breast cancer at the moment, and she’s also a woman of faith. I’m not, in the traditional sense, but I’ll take all the help I can get. My best wishes for strength and peace to you and your friend.

  4. Hope your shoulder is feeling better. Sending healing prayers. Sending prayers for discernment for your friend Loretta.

  5. Sending my ‘thoughts and prayers’ for Loretta.
    Asking for God’s blessings, healing and comfort for her and all who are caring for her.

  7. Thank you for using the word “pissed”. It’s exactly the way I felt when we learned my husband had stage 4 leukemia. Pissed I was, and so was he. He passed away five days before his retirement. What’s fair about that… nothing! I hate the big “C” word. But I think there is too much money in it to irradiate it.
    I hate that your friend and so many others have to suffer the unknown. May her focus be on her happy place….sounds like you need to find your happy place with a good book while that shoulder is giving you grief. I’m enjoying your latest and my hope is that I get to meet you in person some day and get a signed copy of one of my many books. Thank you for your posts.

  8. Have added Loretta to the prayer list at our church – St. Rita in the Desert in Vail, AZ, and have added her to my daily prayers. Thank you for the opportunity to be of help. God bless you, Loretta! You are not alone!

  9. My husband & I have come through 5 bouts of cancer between us. If prayer didn’t work, one or both of us wouldn’t be here. So prayer for Loretta.

  11. I am feeling anger myself, we are losing a wonderful friend my husband went to High School with. She is the kindest, sweetest person I know. I just keep saying WHY HER Take a ASS not this sweet women. Our God works in Mysterious ways I just pray he knows what he is doing. I believe when we say Our Thoughts and Prayers are with you is not a hollow phase. I feel that it means we feel helpless but want to let our friend know she is in our thoughts. That is sometimes all we can do…. Jan

  12. I’m sorry to hear about your friend. Stress just eats us alive and life is full of it. I’m in full agreement with the “why not some deadbeat jerk” instead of the decent people in the world. Lots of things that work without poisoning yourself with chemicals but you need to do a lot of research.

  13. My thoughts and prayers for your friend.

    One thought about those who scoff—— why do they need to be so angry and vicious about it?

  14. Sending prayers for you and Loretta! Life is so very hard. My sil fought cancer 3 times and ended up in remission only to be taken by West Nile Virus. The fight against cancer left her with nothing left to fight the virus. I pray your friend fights the cancer and wins. Hope your shoulder starts feeling better. Sending prayers and hugs to both of you.

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