The sad news about Teddy Kennedy hit me in a very personal way. Just four months ago my 81 year old mother was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a disease that has few treatment options when you are 81. So as I heard the limited options for the 76 year old Senator, and the shortened lifespan he now faces, I felt enormous compassion for him and his family. I know what it is to hear such terrible news, and to feel so helpless. I know what it is to hear the doctor lay out the limited options for treatment. I know what it is to have death become a part of the family.
But I also know what it is to hope. My mother is on an experimental drug that only had a 20% chance of success. Now, after two rounds of therapy, the leukemia appears to be in "remission," in as much as this disease can be in remission. The treatment isn't easy, although as chemo goes it has been relatively side effect free. No hair loss, no mouth sores. Only fatigue and some bone pain, and of course the frequent transfusions to replace the red blood cells and platelets that the chemo also destroys.
It has been a roller coaster. Blood tests twice a week tell us if we will have to schedule a transfusion. I do almost all of the driving as it isn't safe for my mother to drive, and my father has been unable to drive or accompany her to appointments because of his own illness. Some weeks are relatively calm, others totally chaotic. We never know what to expect. Each day brings a new challenge.
Yet this time is teaching me much about living one day at a time, enjoying the little things, and learning to live with full awareness of our mortality. It's amazing, really, how one learns to adjust to terrible news. It's astonishing how one learns to live with the reality of a loved one's terminal illness, moving from shock to horror to anxiety to grief to acceptance of the routine of cancer treatment and the inevitable outcome of the disease.
Senator Kennedy's family will learn to live with the reality of his disease and the ultimate outcome of it. They will learn to enjoy each day as it comes, as will he.
We know, of course, that we will all eventually die. And ultimately, there are only two manners of dying. There is the sudden death and there is the long illness, such as cancer. Senator Kennedy's brothers died suddenly, unable to prepare their families or the nation to live without them. Senator Kennedy for all these years has, in a sense, been trying to finish the grand work they left unfinished. Now he has a chance to prepare for his own death and choose the most important work he wants to accomplish before cancer takes him away.
I think, given the choice, he would prefer to have the time to prepare. I suspect, to the extent he is able, he will use that time wisely, enjoying his family, saying his goodbyes, and finishing the work he started forty six years ago when he first entered the United States Senate.
