Never say goodbye...

It is my belief that someone I've been watching on camera for months passed away.  His screen name is Pax.  I say it is my belief because, like everyone on camera that I watch, I don't actually know Pax, so I have no way of knowing for sure that this happened - but all indications would lead to it, and I have no reason to believe anyone on cam or off would want to lie about such a thing.  

I've been watching Pax just like I've been watching everyone on CW, and I had deduced that he was very sick long before it was verified to me.  It was little things - the feeding tube port on his stomach, the hospital bed that you could sometimes see if he was away from cam, the fact that he was in that bed quite a bit of the day...but I had come to the conclusion that Pax was dying about 2 months ago, when you would see his cam on, but the room would be dark all day long.  I asked a cammer I occasionally chat with whether Pax was dying, and he said he was, and that he was doing so with dignity.

According to notifications from other cammers, Pax died sometime in the past week.  He didn't actually die on camera - he left a note that he would be going away for a while, then another cammer posted that Pax had gone to hospice.  I saw him one more time - my assumption was from hospice, from afar, while his bed was being made, and that was the last.

I regret that I never had the opportunity to know Pax.  It is my belief that all but a very small segment of society have something of value to offer this life, and when someone dies, we all lose a great deal.  Knowledge, a unique way of seeing life, a presence that cannot be duplicated (even in identical twins), talent this world has not seen and will not see again...all that is gone when we are. And the rest of the world is left behind to mourn us and and our loss.

Cancer runs rampant in both sides of my family.  I've lost my Mom and Grandmother to lung cancer (Mom at only 56); aunts and one uncle to breast cancer (men, it is important that you get screened after 50 - breast cancer affects men too.), cousins who have survived cancer but who must ever be diligent because it's sneaky, it will come back eventually, and you have to be ready for it.  Mom was hard...but not unexpected.  She had smoked, and  heavily, since she was 14.  Grandmother was the same.  What hit me the hardest though was the death of my baby sister last year at only 42.  She too had smoked tobacco since she was 14, she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer right from the outset, and unfortunately at that moment she made the mistake of bringing her ex-husband back into her life, and he cut her off from us completely, so much so that by the time we found out she was in the the hospital dying, there was only time for my brother to fly down and he never got the chance to speak to her.  I have no idea if she went through any treatment, and if not, why she chose not to. These are mysteries which will haunt me to the day that I too check out.

Because of this I try to be diligent about my health, figuring that it's not IF cancer will track me down, it's WHEN.  And WHEN that happens, well, I don't know if I would be as brave as Pax was....to open my illness and possible death to the whole world to watch.  Because there are times when you are ill that you have to go through some very undignified things - things you'd rather the world not see.  

Pax showed me that death could be dignified, that it could be supported, that you can let your death be an example to others.  I don't know for sure what Pax died of, only what I heard, but from the dates posted after his reported death he died young...only two years younger than me.  It is my hope that whenever I die, be it young or old, that I show the dignity and the bravery that Pax did at the end of his life.  RIP Pax, RIP Littlebit (my baby sister), and RIP all those who die way before their time, whenever that is. Live life to it's fullest, because we never know when our time is next.