There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on inside me and it’s hard to sort it all out. As many of my readers know, Emru has been in palliative care for several days now and things are coming to an end. The stem cell transplant was successful, but his cancer has not gone into remission. Most of the time I’m handling a classic set of grief-related responses: I’m angry; I’m scared; I’m reminded of my own mortality and of that of everyone around me; I’m reminded of how random death and disease really is; and perhaps most of all, I’m drowning in empathy for Emru, Emru’s sister, his parents, his wife and son, his extended family, and his closest friends.

HRH and I stayed at the dinner table after we ate the other night and did some serious drinking and talking about past experiences with death. HRH has mainly dealt with deaths of older family members, while I’ve dealt with the sudden death of a close friend at the beginning of university as well as relatives and parents of friends. We talked about what is worse, losing someone immediately and having to deal with the shock and pain of not being able to say goodbye, or watching someone die slowly over a long period of time and having to deal with that long-term pain but being able to tell them what they mean to you. There’s no correct answer, of course. Actually, there is, but it’s an implied answer: Tell the people you admire, honour, and/or love on a regular basis how much they mean to you, and then you won’t have to regret a lost chance.

That session with HRH at the dinner table did help me realize something important, though. All my friends are above-average people, so when they are taken from us of course it seems extra unfair. Of course it seems as if the best of the best are being taken away, and we feel even more pain for the best of the best who are left behind and those who have to deal with the immediate loss. Emru isn’t a close friend, but we work in related writing and editing fields and have interests in common, so we cross paths frequently enough. He’s pointed me in the direction of a couple of job posting lists that netted me a contract or two; he deftly touched up an article of mine and made it stronger. I’ve always respected his opinions and his work, enjoyed seeing him at movie premieres or when he visited us at the F/SF bookshop to discuss animation, and was honoured when he invited me on board the contributing staff of the revived fps magazine. Many of my friends are his close friends, however, and I count his sister among my own set of close friends.

Anyway, all the empathy and frustration at the injustice of it all has been playing havoc with my equanimity. Most of the time I feel frustrated at being useless in this situation. And there are other private things going on that are big-ish and messing with me, too. Plus it’s no-light/no-love/no-hope/November, eternally grey and inconstant in temperature. I have no energy, and food holds no attraction. I restored my higher dose of fibro meds last night to help me sleep. (Yes, my doctor okayed it.) The main goal is just getting through the day. The secondary goal is to keep writing, because if I stop at this time of year it’s very, very difficult to get going again. Associated with that secondary goal is the handing work in on deadline. Other things are constantly being shuffled to the next day’s to-do list, and I’m not beating myself up about it. People will understand. And if they don’t, well then, I refuse to beat myself up about that either.

The logical part of me (taste that irony!) is pointing out that the SAD season is beginning, and on top of that it’s the traditionally dead or absent part of the spiritual year when the energy slows almost to a standstill, turning in on itself in to lie fallow and rebuild strength. Come Yule I know things will pick up. But solstice is six weeks away, and the pain is happening now.

I honour the men and women who volunteer or whose job it is to go out and risk their lives in confrontations beyond what most of us can envision. I honour their commitment and courage. I honour our peacekeepers too, the people who go to other countries to help rebuild after times of turmoil. And support staff — doctors, drivers, cooks, all those people who are necessary to the machine of war and who rarely get recognition for being in danger as well. And those left at home, who carry the double burden of hope and dread for their loved ones.

There has to be a better way to solve problems than going to war. But even when someone figures it out, I’ll keep on saying thank you to all those individuals who gave lives, limbs, time, and innocence to the wars. I honour and respect their personal decisions, even if I disagree with the governmental decisions that created the need for them.