Readers send me handwritten letters, and lots of e-mails, too, about a cruel reality none of us wants to think about: our inescapable mortality.
I hear about sick children and about adults of all ages suffering from catastrophic illness or the effects of injuries. Nothing stops the steady flow of mail, which continues through the months and through the years like chapters of an endless story we'll all be a part of one day.
I don't usually turn these into columns unless someone is fighting a health insurance company for a chance to stay alive. But maybe I should, because the letters often contain life lessons, soul-searching discoveries and a grace that is humbling.
All of this comes to mind for a very personal reason. I didn't write a Sunday column last week because I was at a Redwood City hospital, waiting nervously with my parents while a doctor performed brain surgery on my sister, Debbie.
I don't know if it's really true that bad news comes in bunches, but my father had seized up a week earlier, on his 80th birthday, and was diagnosed with a mini-stroke. He was still in the hospital when my sister, who had been having severe headaches, got the results of an MRI that revealed her brain tumor.
My sister is only 57, and her son is scheduled to be shipped to Iraq later this year with the Marines. She was due a break when she went in for that MRI, not that fairness is anything but a concept.
Two years ago, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the disease known as the silent killer because it's often very advanced when symptoms first show up and is likely to recur even when initial treatment seems successful. The surgery, chemotherapy and radiation were all grueling, but she made it through with great courage and her usual sense of humor.
And now this.
Was the tumor unrelated, maybe even benign?
Possibly.
Had it metastasized from the ovarian cancer, which would mean it was malignant?
Possibly.
I marvel at the strength people find to handle these challenges. My sister laughed and joked at dinner the night before the surgery, and even on the gurney the next morning as we rode with her in the elevator on the way to surgery.
She said she'd bargained with God for at least five years when ovarian cancer was first diagnosed, and she was still counting on him honoring the agreement. I gave her the agnostic nod, squeezed her hand and told her I loved her.
