Blog friends here and in Israel have offered their prayers and, for those who don’t believe, good thoughts and good advice. Three (so far) of Mrs. Charm’s work friends have brought cooked meals and lingered for morale-building visits. And, of course, the good family phone calls and emails keep rolling in.
We watched (and participated in) this process with one of Mrs. C.’s best friends, who died of a brain tumor several years ago, after lengthy, debilitating bouts of surgery, chemo and radiation. All to no avail. Her advice then was to accept all offers gratefully when first made. Because they might fade away as the well try to distance themselves from the unwell. Indeed, some who faded away were among her oldest friends.
Which is not criticism, really, just reality. The healthy understandably do not like being confronted with their own mortality which they know down deep inside is sure to get them, too, in the end. I think it’s somewhat easier for a combat veteran, having faced mortality every day for months at a stretch. It became a habit to think about it daily ever after.
I remember bringing jelly beans to a good guy dying of AIDS back in the 80s when I was reporting the epidemic for the daily. It pained him to chew and swallow the colorful bean-shaped candies but he’d always loved them and he wanted them at his end. He died a few days later, happier, I hope, for his last handfuls of jelly beans.
UPDATE: Twenty-two additional work friends plan to bring cooked meals and visit with Mrs. C, in a morale-building display of their affection for her.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
It’s funny how differently each person approaches the idea of going to the other side. When the news of my Mother reached me (and it seemed very bad at the time) I decided that she probably had more than enough people expressing sympathy, empathy, condolences, etc. So I took the tack of acting as normal as possible in the circumstances. Later she said that was the best thing anyone could have done, go figure. The thing that bugged me in the back of my mind then and many years ago was the belief that I was not equal to the task and hence carried a small amount of self doubt and quilt. Strangely enough other people considered me the hard man who could get the tough things done, if they only knew. Hang in there, life is kind of like that scene in Zulu where the young troop sees all the Zulus in the world bearing down them and asks the Colour Sergeant, ” Why us Sergeant?” The reply: “Because we’re here lad and nobody else”.
Yep. Living is simple, you just keep going. Death is complex. It becomes so hard to hang on and so easy to let go.
Not being of Assyrian extraction, I don’t have any words of wisdom to offer, only – hang on there, it ain’t over ’til it’s over. We are all rooting for you.