Upheaval

My heart aches today as I reflect on life and death. I'm tired of this thing called cancer. It has taken my mother, my father and is in the process of taking a much loved cousin.
My first recollection of cancer was a man in our church. I remember he had a gray look to him. And everyone was always praying and believing that he would be healed. He wasn't. I've only known one person to be healed from cancer. He used alternative medicine and it worked. But his cancer was caught early. So it was much easier to cure. In the case of my mother and cousin, the cancer was there for years before it was detected by the doctors. I blame the doctors. I blame them for not doing the right tests. For not listening and not believing the complaints of vague pain. I blame them for all of it.
My feelings on death have always been considered harsh and cold. I believe "Life goes on. Get over it" You can't stop death. It's a fact of life. So why should I spend years grieving? They are gone. Okay. Life goes on and I have things to do. Life does not stop so we can grieve and heal. We have to get up and keep going whether we like it or not.
I think I adopted that attitude after my mother died. Life went on. My father moved on with his life so quickly (a little too quickly) and re-married 12 weeks later. I was crushed by that. All I could think of was "you didn't love mom, if you had, you would not do this". To me, it was the ultimate disrespect! I was disgusted and sickened by the whole idea of him being with a younger woman. I hated him for that. And I hated his new wife. She came in and tried to be a mother to me. HA! Like I was just going to forget my mother and start calling her mom? NEVER in a million years, and still not to this day. When my father died she remarried within 9 weeks. WTH?!
Don't people have any sense of respect and decency? Have they no regard for the dead?
Okay. I realise they are gone and the spouse is legally free to remarry. But really, 12 weeks? After 32 years of marriage, did that mean nothing?

On the other hand......

My brother-in-law died a week before Christmas 25 years ago. His birthday was the day after mine. So my frustration was that every christmas and every birthday my husband was depressed because of the memory of his dead brother. Call me selfish, but I would get angry because there was no celebration of christmas or my birthday! What about loving the ones that are living?? Life goes on! Get over it!

So...on the 31st anniversary of my mothers death, I spent the majority of the day crying. I miss her. I thought it was supposed to get easier over time. But it seems like the older I get the more I miss her. I'm sure it's because I have another family member dying of the same thing that has brought all these feelings to the surface.
Or maybe life moved on too fast, and I didn't give myself time to grieve and heal.