Dear God, make me a bird. So I can fly far. Far far away

My mentor in life, work, and the feminist way is sick. Terminal. Painful. But for whatever reason I keep thinking she’s going to pull through. And I keep trying to convince her partner that she’s going to make it too. I mean, this is one of the founding members of NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation. Is cancer really going to wipe her out when she is such a fighter? Maybe it’s my naïve youth that is making me the optimist. I thought I was right until I went to a feminist dinner tonight. People that have known her since the 60’s came up to her partner and I during the dinner and told us this is the worst she has ever looked. WHAT??? Why would you say that? What on God’s green earth would possess someone to be so…realistic? Is it maturity that makes someone more realistic? And is being that realistic a form of pessimism? I think so. With maturity comes having to deal with more of life’s trials and tribulations. I get that. I sooooo get that. But here is my question that I have been asking myself for the last year or so of working with her: is it better to know that the person is going to die well in advance, or is it better to be completely stunned and have no warning at all? Almost three years ago one of my best friends killed himself. Talk about no freaking warning! I had nothing but anger towards him for about 6 months to a year. I had to go to therapy because of it. But I got over it. Well, maybe not over it, but I got used to the idea that he wasn’t coming back. But with my mentor, I’ve know she’s been sick for 3 and a half years and it is NOT getting any easier. It’s put me in the foulest mood and I hate talking about it ‘cause it makes me overly emotional and instant salty discharge factory but not talking about it is giving me an ulcer. So I think that writing about it may be the closest to cathartic purging that I can muster up. Sorry to be all Debbie Downer and whatnot, but these are the things I think about when I have mindless work. My mind goes into overdrive and wont shut up because it doesn’t need to focus on anything. And on that note…ciao.