#also if for whatever reason the kids know about Ray being her biological son

[fullscoreshenanigans]

(Chapter 22 Bonus Scene | Mystic Code Book Chapter 1 Q&A)

Thinking about how the photo Ray took of Isabella burned up with plant no.3, so the only pictures the children possibly have of her in the human world are mugshots stored in headquarters' database that might have been updated every year on her birthday.

How surreal it is to see her like that, grappling with memories of the complicated woman they knew—the good and the bad—and the young girl staring back at them who resolutely held her head up high to prove she had what it took to survive in a demon's world, knowing all the unspoken pain behind her eyes.

Yvette's portraits of her quickly become their preferred visual references.

[chidoroki]

TPN - Isabella one-shot

Okay, so.. I have so many emotions right now it's not even funny. I don't care how many times I've said this since ch169, but I'm gonna say it again: Isabella is a goddamn QUEEN! I thought the side chapter was going to reflect the light novel like Krone's was last week (it was based on that, correct?), so being able to witness Isabella be that dangerous “iron woman” mastermind again was simply fantastic.

As Krone's extra chapter reminded us, every woman in this mother/sister academy is fighting to survive by any means necessary, so seeing these ladies put on a pretty face one moment to praise Isabella on her promotion only to talk shit behind her back the next minute was of no surprise to me. What did make me a little stunned was that these women are unmistakably the same women who stood so proud and confidently behind Isabella once she revealed her wonderful revenge plan to the rest of the facility back in ch170.

So, what changed? Oh, it's quite simple and a complete joy for me to talk about, so allow me. Isabella had a reputation of never making mistakes, as she always received perfect scores on both written and physical tests, so upon learning that she allowed 15 children to escape is a bit jarring, especially to the other ladies. The quality of her loss was such a huge hit to the farm's profit that they couldn't fathom why she of all people would be chosen to become the next Grandma. They believed it to be unfair, that Isabella must have had some sort advantage after working under Grandma Sarah that could've been kept under wraps. They both got rid of Krone with little to no explanation at all, so some rules must have been tweaked. It's no doubt the ladies saw Isabella as a major threat to their own survival, so they kept a close eye on her and waited for the perfect opportunity.. to create a fake lead to raise suspicion on this flawless woman.

Too bad dearest Grandma was already ten steps ahead of them! HAA! Did they honestly think they could take her down? And Jessica, sweetheart, you even spoke about Isabella's training days a couple of pages ago and how “she calmly got revenge on all the girls when they tried to sabotage her.” That literally just happened again so y'all can't really be surprised by this outcome! She knows that Jessica, Sienna, Scarlet & Matilda, are the current top four choices to become mothers, so it was quite easy for Isabella to determine who would go after her and her new position, if anyone were foolish enough to think about such a thing.

Luckily for them, Isabella has no intentions of killing them off. Since they're all quite intelligent and skilled, she decides to recruit them as allies in her pursuit to destroy Grace Field. Their reaction is similar to the other women we see from ch170. Everyone is apprehensive at first, as going against the farm is nothing but a crazy idea, and yet Isabella assures them that there is no bright future if they remain stuck in the system and obey their rules.

They betray each other to give themselves the best chance at surviving, but it'll be an endless hell if you live out your entire life in fear. So if not for each other, what do these ladies have to live for? Oh, just their children they all chose so hard to forget about.

By now it's no secret that Ray is Isabella's son, but ever since ch170 I couldn't help but wonder if any of those women were the biological moms of any of the other kids we know. You can't tell me the lady with that distinguished nose isn't Nat's mother. I also thought the others could be mothers of Rossi, Yvette, Anna and perhaps Don? Sienna might be Emma's, Matilda to Norman's, Scarlet to Phil's, and Jessica.. I'm not sure honestly? I know it could be any of the kids at GF plant #3, not just the 15 that escaped, but it is fun to think about though and I wasn't expecting to learn that their kids were all at the same house.

It's quite convenient that Isabella had the chance to raise their children actually, because after a few more words of encouragement and the knowledge that their children are indeed still alive, the four ladies agree to support Isabella's plan. Well, once she guarantees to not double-cross them, which is reasonable. It's best for them to have some trust in each other in order to work together. Isabella gives them her word and some much better evidence of her mistake in the form of… aaaaahhh Ray's note.

Bro, believe me when I was completely shooketh upon reading this. It's been a question we all had for so long that I was fairly certain we weren't going to get an answer for it after the series ended. Of course the knowledge of Ray being Isabella's true son was the weakness many of us thought the note contained, but I could've sworn I read somewhere, in some interview or whatever it was, that Shirai said it was something else Ray baited Krone with (right? or am I completely going crazy about this trivia). Anyways, I guess a farewell note is different enough but damn.. what a punch to my heart. Not only did he address it as “dear mother,” but the fact that Isabella kept it this entire time. Like wow.. I'm kinda speechless here. No doubt she still loves her son, just look at how fondly she holds it! If anything, I must know the full contents of said note! Shirai, please! I'm begging!

And if that wasn't enough to make me emotional, Isabella's wish certainly had me tearing up. I hope she knows that her precious children are all happy together in a free world living the best life they possibly can. Honestly, if I had any power to change just one thing in this series, it would to let Isabella live. Having Emma keep her memories is a close second, but I've come to accept that inconvenience after seeing how happy she and all the other kids are post-series. Look at this precious family! I love them! (also I wanna see that full photo on top with her and ayshe darn it!)

Seriously though, her death is still something I'm not over. I literally have not listened to her lullaby since ch177 dropped because I'm scared I'll become a tearful mess. Yes, sacrificing herself to protect Emma and that other girl from the demon was very admirable of her and helped with her redemption, but she didn't have to die from it! (hell, if emma could survive being stabbed then so could isabella, right?? damn plot armor! ) To me, I just feel like it wasn't necessary, especially now after learning what we just did from this extra chapter. Not only did she agree to become Grandma to help the children when they eventually returned to GF in two years, but Isabella also decreased the number of shipments in order to produce higher quality goods to make up for those that escaped, which is exactly what Emma believed would happen once she decided to leave the kids four and under behind. I love how Isabella adopted Emma's ideals and spirit in order to go against the system and rally everyone else up to accomplish the impossible. Personally, I forgave this woman the moment she retrieved the ropes in ch37 so the farm wouldn't know exactly where the children escaped from. She didn't have to die to prove she was a good mother who cared and love her children, because she showed that several times over and over again. She literally did everything in her power to help these kids secure a brighter future while remaining in the shadows.

Yeah, it makes me happy that they did at least take her body to to the human world so they all can continue to pay their respects to her, but aaahhh.. how I wish she were still alive. She suffered so much, she deserves to live in peace with her children and love them all normally. Ray especially!! You can't just formally introduce these four brilliant women to me and then be like “oh yeah, they have GF kids too and now they're free in the human world with them” and not have Isabella with Ray! I'm sure their relationship would've been rocky at first, but I still would've love to see them at least give each other a chance to be a real family. Hmmmm.. this chapter, man.. so not good for my heart, but I loved every bit of it. Once again, rest in peace to the iron woman. What a queen.

[bigskydreaming]

I know what you like from Dick (your post are really extensive and detailed, which is great because I love seeing people talk about what they’re passionate about) but is there any type of arc, friend expansion or themes you’d like to see with other robins like Damian or Jason?

Jason, definitely. I actually talk a lot about possibilities for him unrelated to things involving Dick - I’ve got lots of thoughts and feelings about what if he’d had a bigger support system when he was a teen, and how that could have led away from his inevitable death. Like how there was always that age group of YJ and Titans members who were just a couple of years older than Tim so never quite meshed with his YJ crew, but not as old as Dick and his friends....the Ray, Damage, Anima, etc. Like there’s more than enough there for Jason’s own Titans lineup of in-betweeners. I also have a lot of thoughts about Jason and Damage being potential BFFs, and also the idea of Jason dating Tom Bronson aka Tomcat, the werepanther son of Wildcat, Ted Grant. 

And post death and return, I think Jason, Obsidian and Damage could make a great trio of misunderstood (and horrifically misused by DC) friends who’ve been through hell and back and toe the line between hero and anti-hero, but often not even so much because of their own choices but because of how they’re inevitably perceived due to things outside their own actions (like Obsidian often assumed the worst of because people are afraid of his shadow powers, and Damage has a long history of being demonized for the destructive nature of his powers by people in universe, etc).

So like, I definitely have those posts, I just suck at tagging....like search my blog on mobile for those characters’ names and posts with them should come up fairly easily.

My thoughts on expansion for Damian at the moment are currently consumed by GIVE HIM BACK HIS FRIENDS DC, WTF, FIRST COLIN, THEN MAYA, NOW JON, WHY WON’T YOU LET HIM KEEP ANY OF HIS FRIENDS EVER.

And with Tim they’re mostly like.....give Young Justice to anyone but Bendis, who I can’t stand, lol, but otherwise I’d be interested. Like, I know ppl don’t believe me lol but I genuinely don’t inherently dislike Tim, as long as he’s not being written as what I perceive to be at Dick’s expense, like, people getting pissed at Dick on Tim’s behalf for something that I will always maintain was not as cut and dried as people make it. But like, separate of stuff like that....I loved the YJ book from the nineties and was a big fan and so I’m actually really glad to have all of those characters back and reunited, its basically what I would have wanted and done with them myself all along, its just....Bendis. Why. Stop.

Also, Tim’s new superhero name will never not be the dumbest thing ever, there are SO MANY CHOICES you could go with instead and you have him like...Fail at Secret Identities AND Striking Fear Into The Heart Of His Enemies all at the same time. Good plan.

Like, when you need your hero to stop and explain to the bad guys that no, actually, his namesake is actually a pretty bad-ass bird in real life, honest, like...that’s not good. I don’t know who said that was good but like. They lied.

Cass and Duke, I just need more of together. Them in Batman & The Outsiders is again, actually a canon thing I really enjoy, even though the insistence on Cass’ broken English can go die in a fire any day now, seriously. But I love the two of them together and think they’re such an underrated dynamic and they play off each other well, and I would love to see them explore the hidden aspects of both their backgrounds together....like there’s still so much Cass doesn’t know about Lady Shiva and her intentions for Cass like what she even wants from her, and literally everything Duke learned about/from Gnomon in Batman & The Signal needs following up on STAT, even if its just to say Gnomon was full of shit and Duke should not listen to him about anything. 

I also have some older posts about the possibilities of tying Duke’s powers and his family tree into the emotional entity of hope that empowers the Blue Lantern Corps, like the same way Jade - Alan Scott’s daughter - is connected to the green lantern energy and powers without actually needing to be one herself. Like, some of that meta needs tweaking because later stories I read with Duke made certain things about that not work, but like...there’s stuff there that I still would love to see played with even if just in fic, because I love the Lantern CONCEPT as a whole, and also I’m really really in love with the idea of one of Duke’s direct ancestors having maybe been an avatar of hope at some point like Kyle was for Ion, and Duke’s powers were derived from that....like we know his mom Elaine had some kind of powers as well, with the implication IMO being that they were light connected, and that’s why Gnomon was fixated on her in the first place, even if he’s lying about being Duke’s biological father....anyway, like I said, there’s definitely stuff about that lurking around my blog, I just....desperately need to get better about tagging, but also I say that a lot and then it never happens. LOL. Like I’m great at remembering to tag for trigger warnings, but tagging for organizational purposes? My brain’s like lol why would we ever do that.

But yeah, I for sure have lots of thoughts and ideas for all the family members at various times, but there’s not a whole lot of rhyme or reason to when they pop into my head or when I shift to one in specific....just that inevitably, I always shift back to being Dick Grayson hour, lol. I even have some broader Batfam/franchise posts like.....there’s one I wrote about how I’d give other Rogues than the Joker a derivative character or sidekick, like Mister Freeze, the Riddler and Poison Ivy (I think I named them Kid Chill/Tundra, the Memetic and Hemlock). 

And there’s one I keep meaning to revisit about how I’d love to see the Batfamily go up against...a whole rival family, like if a branch of the Falcones returned to Gotham to try and retake power in secret, and they had a matriarch kinda like how Bruce is the patriarch of the Batfam, and then various kids and cousins to act as foils for the Batkids. Like a hacker named Smokescreen to work on hiding their activities from Oracle’s eyes, or a rival to Jason called Red Herring who like, pits the family against each other by framing crimes on various members of the family and testing their trust in each other.

Stuff like that. So I’m not a totally one track mind. Just 90%! LOLOL.

I occasionally remember to take longer meta or ficbits and put them in this sorta catch-all fic posting I have here:

 https://archiveofourown.org/works/18557212/chapters/43986025

But like, by occasionally I mean I’ve remembered a grand total of four times, but hey, whatever. I’m a WIP. The first one is an old magic AU I’m pretty fond of....it was mostly focused on how Dick, Jason and Tim might grow up if they’d been adopted by Zatanna instead of Bruce....though Bruce ends up adopting Cass, Steph and still has Damian. Unfortunately it was written before I got caught up on DC stuff so it doesn’t have Duke in that one....though he’s in two of the others which are more just general Batfam shenanigans.

*Shrugs* Basically I’m random as fuck and hop around a lot, but I’m definitely interested in all the various Batkids, so can happily ramble about any of them with the right prompt, whether a reblog or an ask - just assuming I have the time or energy or am not being a cranky asshole at a particular character because I’m overprotective of my personal chosen fave and not above admitting it. LOL. Quelle problematique.

Like, this is a bit broader of a question then I typically know what to do with, other than just like...point to other things I’ve written that are related, lol, because like....there’s SO MANY thoughts I have or ways I could answer that, I generally don’t know where else to start haha. The more specific you are with an ask or a debate point, the better your chances of getting something definitive from me, lmao.

[nirah10]

From JoeBama Fan,

In fiction stories Dickish behaviour is often excused by a sad back story. Like ‘he had a reason to be angry at the world!’ Can you imagine if everyone acted like that in real life though? Take Vice President Joe Biden for example. No one would argue he is one of the most positive people in politics and managed to make friends with people on both sides. A Republican once said about Biden (despite Biden being a democrat) 'If you don’t like Joe Biden as a person there is something wrong with you.’

He serves so many charities, has worked so hard for the nation, is friendly with everyone and really cares about people.

When people stop to talk to him on the street you can tell he really does care. He has a lot of empathy. And takes a lot of time out to help people.

He helps so many people.

But beyond that is a ray of sunshine.

Full of positive energy, good humour, friendliness, compassion and kindness.

Yet this warm, compassionate and kind man has one hell of a tragic backstory.

Thirty years ago when he was a senator, and while he was at work, his wife had taken their three children Christmas shopping, a week before Christmas.

A tractor ploughed into her car, killing her and their thirteen month old baby girl.

Mum and the 13 month old baby died but the 2 year old and 3 year old boy managed to escape.

Losing his wife and daughter was hard but he still managed to raise two compassionate sons who would both become high profile lawyers and follow in their dad’s footsteps.

Fast forward to 2015; his oldest son Beau dies from cancer. 30 years after his mum and sister died.

Obama spoke at Beau Biden’s funeral as he was also friend’s with Joe’s son.

But despite losing his wife, his daughter and now his son, Biden remained a ray of light and grace in American politics.

And through all the ugly and spiteful things that was said in the election, Biden remained above it.

With his son dying in 2015, bringing back memories of losing his wife and daughter, it would have been easy to slip into attack mode during an election with so much negativity being heaped onto democrats by the Trump campaign.

But despite the ugly election, Biden remained one of the few active members of the Democratic Party that during the election came off clean. He didn’t stoop to the level of the Republicans. He didn’t bite back when the attacks about him became person. He didn’t enter the mud pit which tempted a lot of the other Democrats.

And I think that is why Joe Biden has gone from hardly ever being talked about, to a very popular figure after the election.

His conduct is admirable. And that is without even beginning to go into all his charity work.

Not to mention his great record in law making for over fifty years, in which he has helped implement a lot of positive changes.

Sorry, lost track.

But what I was saying. If Biden had been in a novel, he would have been driven mad and turned into a villain under the public pressure and struggles he’s faced.

So maybe we give villains too much sympathy. As people can rise above it.

Dear JoeBama Fan,

There are so many people in real life who blame their choices on other people, whether it’s cruelty, selfishness, or just plain stupidity. My biological father blames his parents (because he claims they were also abusive) and sometimes even us (because we were “bad” kids) for his abusive behaviour, saying whatever he can think of to make it someone else’s fault. A good friend of mine has knowingly made one horrible decision after another, being fully aware that they are horrible decisions, driving herself into the ground financially and emotionally, but she blames all of it on her parents for not “teaching” her properly. I have met so many people that can’t be bothered to work on being better people but then also can’t accept responsibility for it.

Seeing someone like Joe Biden go through life being an all around good person, despite all his terrible losses makes me feel a strange and strong sense of pride. I don’t know this man, I’ve never met him and I never knew his name before he became VP, but I’m proud of him. I cried right along with him when he received the Medal of Freedom and just sat there thinking about how much he deserved it. There are so many people who would have become bitter and unkind if they had faced the same challenges that he did, but Biden chose not to. For that, I respect him greatly.

[rilenerocks]

Merkel Cell Carcinoma slide

Years ago I had a friend who was describing some symptoms that her mother had been experiencing for several weeks. I listened carefully, recognizing that they sounded very similar to those my dad had before being diagnosed with bladder cancer. When she finished talking, I gently and carefully suggested to her that what I heard was sounding a lot like cancer. She looked at me rather nonchalantly and said, “we don’t get cancer in our family.” I was really surprised. She was smart and thoughtful and in a blink just dismissed the most non-discriminating killer on the planet as a possible cause for the nagging problems. Within a year, her mother was dead from her bladder cancer, after putting off appointments over and over because cancer wasn’t part of their history.

Cancer is the original equal opportunity employer. Cancer isn’t sexist. Cancer isn’t racist. Cancer is nondenominational. Cancer doesn’t care what you believe about life or death. Cancer doesn’t care about your looks or your smarts or your interests. Cancer just is. Cancer can fell anyone, no matter your strength or your attitude. Cancer isn’t a fight. At least not a fair one. When people die from cancer, they’re not losers. They haven’t lost their battles. They’ve just been overcome by an elusive, stealthy biological mystery,  that in their cases, had no true known answer to its mutable abilities. Cancer is endlessly surprising. As cognitive beings, we naturally search for answers and reasons for what we can’t understand or what we didn’t expect. Everyone gets to decide what’s best for them. We found our own way through cancer.

Michael knew that skin cancer ran in his family and was vigilant about using sunscreen, seeing his dermatologist every three months and attacking any suspicious spots by excision or medications. My big, strong husband, who was everyone’s hero, was felled anyway. Cancer liked his body and his immune system couldn’t do a thing about it. Cancer started growing and played a 5 year cat and mouse game with my guy. 

  We knew from the initial diagnosis that the likelihood of him surviving his orphan cancer was small. Reading the Merkel Cell website the day of our life-changing phone call was grim. We had an instant flash of recognition-our world was forever changed. 

Both of us, different in so many ways and virtually identical in others, got ready fast, an especially tough trick for Michael who always moved slowly. The big joke between us was him saying, “Would you mind removing your feet from my back?” as I blazed past him. But he knew this was different and that speed was mandatory. We learned everything we could and followed best practices, with multiple medical opinions from the top experts in their field. We had a genetic analysis of his tumor tissue. He tried one treatment after another. I wrote every principal investigator of every clinical trial I found on the Clinicaltrials.gov website. About half of them answered me and they consulted with each other about our case. We realized they were doing their best to brainstorm for a viable solution to this disease. But there wasn’t one. Michael had eighteen rounds of a potent cocktail of chemo drugs. Over 5 years, he had 75 radiation treatments.

For 45 of them he wore a molded facial mask which was then bolted to a table to keep him still while he was blasted with rays. He took shots to support his bones which weaken during treatment. He tried a targeted therapy, aimed at a genetic mutation.  His skin erupted in an astonishing rash that covered his back and torso and eventually elevated his liver enzymes. Just as well, as the drug cost was astonishing and economically prohibitive. 

His tiny skin cancer jumped into his lymphatic system, and over time, showed up in bones all over his body causing an agonizing spinal cord compression. More and more skin lesions popped up on his head, his neck and his groin. We went to Barnes in St. Louis to try to get him in a clinical trial for one of the new immunological drugs. He was rejected, an unconscionable decision that was impossibly hard to absorb. Eventually our local oncologist was so desperate, he applied for the drug pembrolizumab or Keytruda, which was magically approved because of Michael’s terrible prognosis. 

  And suddenly, within less than two weeks, the tumors began to disappear. He was to be a miracle responder, one of the small number who manage to wind up in the success cohort. Within a few months, he was well, normal even. All through the various treatments, he’d had positive responses which gained us months that we used as a compressed retirement. With the prospect of death always threatening in the background, we chose to spend lots of private time together, traveling and making memories which would sustain me. We spent as much time as we could with our family, reveling in the everyday moments, a dinner, lounging in the afternoon on our kids’ back deck, going to movies or just reading in the same room. 

  Suddenly it seemed anything was possible. But after 6 months of treatment, Michael had a profound spike in his liver enzymes. Our doctor felt compelled to stop treatment. I argued vociferously against this as he was taking other medications which could have caused the liver issues. Knowing that his disease could get active at any time, the doctor thought we should do a challenge to see what would happen. The next thing we knew, he was gone, the second oncologist we lost in a few years. So we started over with a new one. 

Each oncologist has a personal perspective and I knew right away that our new doctor was a more cautious individual than the previous one. She was opposed to taking the risk of a challenge and instead recommended continued scanning every three months. The year 2016 was treatment-free and we cautiously continued to make the most of our time. But any moment when Michael was ill, whether with a cold or a dreaded case of shingles, I was alarmed at what I saw as a failure of his immune system. By December of that year, his behavior was getting a bit peculiar. I was frightened and in January, we had two doctor appointments and scans which indicated absence of disease. I couldn’t believe it. Michael was behaving oddly and changing perceptibly. After 45 years together, there are the things you just know. After a scary night less than 4 days after receiving a clean scan, I called the oncologist in the morning to say I was going to get him into the ER for a brain MRI, the one test he’d never had. The doctor said that those tests were hard to get in emergency,  but I was absolutely determined and used all the trust we’d built over the years to get Michael to go with me to the hospital. By the end of the day, we had the test results which showed a brain cancer presentation that could only be likened to meningitis. The doctors said he had central nervous system lymphoma. I knew they were wrong. I fought back because I knew it was Merkel cell which is what it had always been, from his first biopsy to his last. Most people with that metastatic disease just didn’t live long enough for the medical professionals to see what the disease looked like in the brain. An average lifespan following his diagnosis was 4 weeks. Most people go directly to hospice. But Michael had triumphed before. He chose a combination of awful whole brain radiation and Keytruda and managed to survive for 17 weeks. 

After a long hospital stay of 32 days and nights together, we managed to get home. For years, we’d discussed how he wanted to die. First and foremost, of course, he wanted to stay alive. But absent that option, he wanted to die as undiminished as possible, not wasted away to a shell. And he wanted to be in his home, out of a medical venue, in the space where we’d led our lucky life. He sadly wondered if he’d ever have another good day, one in which he could feel okay.

His desires became my mission. With endless encouragement, prodding and the most ingenious protein shakes I could concoct, we stayed at home and for the most part he still looked strong, with good color, not wasted. One lovely April day, we managed to get across the street to our daughter’s home to spend the afternoon, to sit together with our grandchildren and go back to our own house, content with that feeling of normalcy. Our son who was abroad, working on a postdoc, managed to stop his work and get home so he could share the last days of Michael’s life. He died a year ago today, peacefully, quietly and unwillingly, with me beside him, holding his hand.

  I will always wonder about the might-have-beens. There were so many steps in our journey when a small adjustment could have made a difference. I used all of my powers, intellectual, emotional and persuasive to push things outside the box of standard medical care. I learned more about cancer and medicine than I ever dreamed would have been possible for me, always a wordsmith, never a scientist. I don’t know what could’ve happened, if only. All I know is that cancer ultimately presented its final invoice to us, the price being Michael’s life which he lived and loved so well.

This past year has been full of many different experiences for me. I’ve been out in the world and also by myself. A lot. I’m deep inside myself exploring, probing and searching for my own answers, for a way to live that feels right for me. I remain in love with Michael. I expect I always will be. We had a bond that could withstand everything life tossed against it.

One of his favorite movies was The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. He watched it almost any time it appeared on late night tv. The story is one of a widow who occupies the home of a sea captain who’s died, but insists on being in his house with her, as if she’s the invader of his personal space. Of course, this isn’t a perfect metaphor for what happened to us. But I often feel that we will be in our home together, until it’s my turn to be done with whatever lies ahead of me.

I didn’t know I could survive a minute, a week or a whole year without Michael. But here I am, still alive and evidently destined to go forward. So I will, holding him in my heart and feeling the buoyancy of his presence which shows up unexpectedly and fills me with sensations I’m learning to accept as my new normal. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must do the thing which you think cannot do.” That’s exactly what I’m doing. The magic that Michael and I built helps me. One minute, one week, one year. On I go, on we go. I miss him every day. Almost another full year has passed since I wrote this blog post. I still feel virtually the same as I did back then. I remain in love with Michael and I’m still mystified by the incredible connection that lives on between us, though he’s been dead almost two years. I’m still thinking away. And I’ve learned some things about  cancer and what it can and can’t do. I wanted to share my reflections in the hope that they’ll help someone out there who’s having a similar experience.

First, my interest in the biological underpinnings of cancer has stuck with me. I still read a lot of scientific articles and have taken a number of science classes in the past year. Molecular biology had a big impact on me. I recognize that Michael’s cancer was a remarkably successful organism. That may sound odd, but the truth is, it managed to adapt and survive multiple forms of treatment and roar back stronger time after time. More than ever, I understand the complexity of trying to cure a disease that’s alive and mutating constantly. Knowing that no matter what a person’s attitude and strengths may be, there are some creatures that survive no matter what, changes the way you think about cancer. People who die from cancer aren’t losers and didn’t do anything wrong with their attitudes. They’re just overmatched. Individualized treatment seems to be the only real solution and in American medicine, that’s a heavy lift.

Secondly, for some of us caregivers, the trauma of the illness and death process leaves a state of mind that can only be likened to PTSD. I see the vestiges of all those desperate days in myself. I have sleep issues and still find myself stunned to realize that Michael is really dead. I can roll over in the night and wake myself, worried that I might be disturbing my guy and then remembering he’s gone. I’ve turned into somewhat of a germaphobe. I was so worried all the time about some random infection that might hurt Michael. So I’m always looking at how people sneeze or cough into their hands and touch surfaces, wanting to spray everything with Lysol and carrying Purell everywhere. I wonder if I’ll ever stop doing this neurotic stuff.

But there is the upside. Learning to live in every moment has stuck with me. I’m much better at keeping my perspective and not getting bowled over by the small stuff. I’m more mindful about how I choose to spend my time and with whom. I don’t want to waste any of it. I want to be the best version of myself. I spend time with my family. I spend time trying to take care of my friendships that have proved sustaining and meaningful. I appreciate nature every day. I garden in my attempt to create habitat for lots of animals while donating beauty to my surroundings. I read and I listen to lots of music. I try to learn something new and every day. I’m politically and socially engaged and I share my views and feelings in multiple ways. My life isn’t empty – it’s just less full.

I didn’t know what I’d be like without Michael. After 45 years together, I’m keenly aware that there’s not enough time in my life to ever experience anything that will ever approach the magnitude of what we shared. But I’m making an effort to compile our stories and share them with our children and their children, the ones here and the ones to come. Our saga is rich, and while we will wind up as dust mixed together in our garden, our history will live on. I’m satisfied with that assignment I’ve given myself and it motivates me to work even on the saddest days. I’ve made it through our anniversary this month. Upcoming are my birthday, the anniversary of his death and Michael’s birthday. They’ll be hard but easier than last year. The magical and inexplicable presence I feel with me every day helps. As a pretty grounded, realistic person, I never imagined I could feel such an ethereal companion. But whatever. As Michael frequently said, it is what it is. The good news is I’m finding a way forward that has brought quality to my life. In the end, there is life after cancer robs you. Who knew?

  Cancer’s Final Invoice -Redux. Merkel Cell Carcinoma slide Years ago I had a friend who was describing some symptoms that her mother had been experiencing for several weeks.