I suppose if someone dies in a war. Or if they lived a life of hardship and stress. If they are from a country where bombs drop all the time. Rest-in-Peace would be a great thing to say. Simple, life-affirming, considerate.
But... you can hear "the but" coming can't you.
BUT I certainly am not tired. I don't need to rest, except for nap time some days. I have way too much to do. I don't have time to rest. I don't want peace and quiet. I want to make a difference in this world. I want to make sure it is a better place than when I entered. I want to find out stuff and learn stuff and grow stuff and read lots of good books and make up countless recipes and have wine on the deck, and the list is endless.
I don't want to Rest-in-Peace. I want to RIP through life knowing it is a precious and limited thing. If I feel like this at 60, I am sure the children we watch die, day after day have other plans. Seattle lost another one on Sunday. Ahmie Njie was only 14. She was full of life and cancer. They don't go to well very often. Cancer is atrocious at getting along with its host. It kills. In unthinkable, painful, sad and depressing ways. It takes so much with it when a young one dies.
Ahmie is another victim. One that touches each of us. I didn't understand how it all worked until I was reading a book that talked about a quantum physics concept of "Quantum Entanglements." There are those that believe particles in far reaches react with each other even when they are far far from each other. Cancer Moms have the same thing going on with each other. We connect when we share our stories, and we continue to feel the story as it proceeds. We react. We respond. We reach out. We recoil. We feel. The empathy runs deeps and long and reaches across the boundaries of the world.
Ahmie's Mom chronicled her story and shared the ending with the world. I don't have the ability to understand or know what Gienna is feeling or thinking right now. I would not presume to have words or answers or even know the right questions to ask. I do know there is an ache in my heart. A need to take many deep breaths. There is an empty place in the universe. A void was left by a child that was not ready to rest. She had too many plans and too many ways she wanted to RIP through life.
We have become "Entangled".
Twenty Years, Two Hundred and Forty Months, Seven Thousand Days, and Three Hundred Days. Since we started chasing Leukemia.
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