I could never forget the twenty wonderful and sometimes not-so-wonderful years I spent with Mary Sheila Nassif Mrochinski as her husband. They were magical and full years -- with a profound and lovely arc. These years held many intimate moments, many loving moments, many tearful moments, and sundry moments that were better forgotten -- but that can never be so. You can't undo time, or pain, or disease, or death.
Sheila's death was unfair and undeserved. She was not alone in this. The small town in which she grew up in North Carolina had clusters of unfair deaths like hers. Every one of the girls she played with as a little girl are now deceased, save one, her best friend Celeste (Tess). Even Tess has felt the unfair "sting" of exotic cancers as she, even now, is undergoing radiation treatment for breast cancer.
All the other little girls are gone: pancreatic cancer, odd breast cancers (similar to Sheila's IBC), esophageal cancer, cervical cancers, late onset brain cancer, and on-and-on. Obviously there are/were environmental causes (epigenetic) such as the constant spraying of nearby crops with DDT and Malathion -- for decades -- and the children's exposure to same by "playing in the smoke" of the sprayers, and eating the fruit of the ubiquitous pecan trees and backyard gardens that occupied and enveloped all their homesteads.
I am now "going forward" -- slowly -- into a new life. I will continue to write; to travel some; to enjoy the company of new and old friends; to connect with family where and how I can. I will be a help rather than a disruptor or merely an observer of others. I will live out my own life as a gift to others, without being a burden to anyone but my own churning self. I will continue to live up to my own life's values. I will live as if each day is my last. I will continue to learn to ... dance and love.
Resist; resist; resist!!!!
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