When Dreams Die.

With all the talk about dying it is easy to focus on the tangible things that go away or disappear when we die. The things that we often leave behind incomplete because we didn't have the time or the will to carry through. We could have completed them if we had really wanted to but, for the most part, we chose not to. But sometimes we just run out of time.
So we miss out on seeing people, on going places, on doing things, on saying the things that we thought were important but which, ultimately, were not as high on the priority list as we thought. But that is so much water under the bridge. While some people may be offended because they are left out, there really shouldn't be any animonisty amongst close friends. Shit happens when you're dying
But then there are the less obvious things that don't get done. The hopes, the dreams, the intangibles of life. The things that have the potential to mean so much but which seem so unimportant when they don't get done. Our biggest hope is that we find a cure or at least find some kind of treatment that will keep us going for a long, long time. Sometimes that happens because medical science has stumbled upon some new miracle drug that works miracles on a particular cancer (it happens!) but even that doesnt' feel miraculous because we pray so hard and have such unrealistic expectations of medicine to begin with. "Of course it happened. I fought hard and it paid off. You must not be fighting hard enough. Drink that wheat grass (or whatever) and you'll be just like me!" But there are so many hopes that go unmet and because they are not directly related to our disease and to our terminal prognosis they don't seem as connected or important, even though they are. I hope that my family doesn't grieve too long and hope especially that my wife will come out of this a stronger person, but that might not happen and that would be sad indeed. I hope that I have left them financially viable but have no control over the ecoomony or what governments decide to do it their questionable wisdom. These hopes mean more to me than those other more discrete "things" yet I don't have as much control over them and they certainly bear more heavily on my mind.
And then there are the dreams which we leave behind. All through our lives we have dreams of what we are going to do with our career and more importantly with our money, our savings, our retirement funds and the time we will have to use them as we approach our golden years. When we are first married and in the workforce it seems we have forever to create that nest egg and set ourselves up for a retirement (hopefully early) where we can enjoy the fruits of all of our labours. Where life can pay us back for our contributions to society and to the economy. I see so many of my friends doing just that and I envy them so much. I certainly don't begrudge them because there but for the grace of god go I, but their success in achieving their dreams just emphasisizes how much I will miss my dream of retiring and spending the last several decades of my life with my wife and children and their children. What sweet dreams they have been and they have sustained me through my working life over many years of long hours in many cities, so often away from my children as they were growing up. And just as these dreams came tantalizingly close, they have been snatched away from me. Those dreams are gone, replaced with the more tangible hopes that Dianne and the kids will be okay.
It hurts. There's nothing good about it. But I'm hanging on to these last hopes and just have to accept the loss of those dreams that can now never be. In the meantime, my dreams are beginning to focus on what is waiting for me on the other side. So far, they're pretty positive and that's a good thing.
Personal Update
Great visit with my doctor. We have reached a floor with the steroid and may have to go up a bit to avoid the muscle spasms and cramps I've been experiencing. He talked about the need to have a philosphy of care such that we need to worry about the day-to-day experience rather than the longer term effects.