How Do You Help Someone Let Go ?

     I'm sure we all know someone who has died, or is dying. Recently talking with a friend in Brooklyn who lost her son and husband two days apart at the end of January this year, I asked her, how she did it, how she helped her son let go.
    Her husband died quickly in an accident so no chance to help him. But with her son, she said, I need to, just be there. We have all heard and said that before. Yet we went deeper to her daily trips to the hospital and still working, always working.
    She said he too helped her when he told her, mom go to work. She said she was lucky because her job was split between having to be close in the morning and afternoon, so she could visit him during the day in the Manhattan hospital he was in.
    Day by day after blood transfusions, bone marrow transfusions it was decided one more transfusion. He had one already, an umbilical cord from a baby. Now he was about to have another and he was up, alert with new, or renewed hope. He had many visitors, hundreds at a fund raising in Staten Island,  and at an MTA Christmas party because he was so loved and thought about.
   One day his mom came in and she just sat and waited, talked a little as he waved her over to him. He needed to let go and she needed to let him. He patted his chest for her to put her head on him. He then patted her, whispered how he loved her and his family. Tears fell from her face.
    He fell back to sleep and she sat, just being there for him with him and loving him, knowing she had to try to be somewhat  strong, but time for him to stop trying to be strong for everyone else. A few days later he had that second transplant, and peacefully left this world as we know it.
  

AML-8 Types, Deadly

      Recently a young guy I knew passed away from AML, a type of cancer/leukemia that studies show, if you're very young or older than sixty, your chance of survival is higher, but if you're between twenty-five and forty-five you have a five window and the chances are higher you won't live.
     Last night I was talking to my friend who just lost her son, and her husband was killed two days before her son died. The enormous grief, I can't imagine.
She taught me, that there is more than one type of AML. Sandy let me know about eight different types of AML. She is sitting and reading all about this now as she did before her son died. But then is was mainly about the type her son had.
      She is returning to work next week. How does a grief stricken parent go on. Yes, I know, a day at a time. But I wonder about cancer research. Where are we?

      My first memory of cancer was so many years ago, I was just a child. Cancer research has come a long way, but why aren't we told enough. Oh sure every so often we hear a little bit but even then it's just something like, detection early for survival. That is great, but what about a cure?  A cure for cancer so people don't even have to go through it.

       A guest doctor was on the Dr. OZ show a few days ago. He stated that he and Dr. OZ are outdated about cancer. He stated invasive procedures make cancers spread, that if left alone they will just go away. I wouldn't want to take that chance. But what he did say and what we are learning is we are born with cancer cells, so in order to not let them grow, we need to eat what God provides, not food with preservatives, and not food that has been altered, frozen,  or colored such as cereals.
      Me? I'm still working on it, a day at a time.