Last week we found out that a good friend of our family, Miss Binns (at left) has an inoperable brain tumor. She starts radiation this week, and her oncologist has given her a 12-18 week prognosis.We've known Miss Binns since she was a baby; she's two days older than Super Q. Her mom is one of my dear friends. We're all reeling at the news, as you might imagine. I can't seem to wrap my mind around the possibility of a life only 4 years long.
I've been thinking the past few days about one of my favorite books, Howard's End, by E.M. Forster. Among other things, its theme is the overarching importance of personal relationships in our lives. Indeed, you might say that little else matters except for connecting with (loving) others. In the book, two sisters, the Miss Schlegels, encounter death, love, and loss with grace and sensitivity informed by their motto: "Only Connect!" They consider themselves quite different from other people--they don't care much for (as they put it) "telegrams and anger." In other words, they try to see beyond the minutiae that can cloud our perspective and take time away from the people we love the most.
"Only Connect!" Words to live by, I think.
1 comment:
Wow... we have a family in our ward with five kids... their youngest has just undergone his first round of chemo for leukemia... he's 3. The mother - just finished her last round of chemo and treatment for breast cancer that she's been battling for the last year +. I always feel so helpless... especially when it's kids. I just don't get it. All I can do is pray and then learn from how they live in the midst of these trials.
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