Link: In the near absence of friendship...
May. 4th, 2013 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soniaI needed to read this today. Monica Cassani, "In the near absence of friendship..." about the abandonment and isolation of being chronically ill.
I have this persistent idea that lack of friendship and companionship means I'm Doing It Wrong. Maybe it simply means I'm Doing It Honest, and there have been a lot of hard things in my life. It feels a lot better to think of it as a characteristic of our modern rushed mobile society, than as a deep failure in the way I live and relate.
My cat Lilac is now painfully thin from renal failure. I just started her on a new food which she eats enthusiastically and apparently without ill effect, so perhaps the end is a little delayed, but it is clearly coming. I grieve not only her impending loss, but also the fact that she is my only close companion. Meanwhile I enjoy seeing her sprawled luxuriously in the sun-warmed upstairs room, and treasure each moment when she seeks me out, purring.
People are afraid of and do all they can to run from life’s pain and our physical and mental frailty it seems. Those of us who are faced with it discover a side of humanity most are in denial about.
I have this persistent idea that lack of friendship and companionship means I'm Doing It Wrong. Maybe it simply means I'm Doing It Honest, and there have been a lot of hard things in my life. It feels a lot better to think of it as a characteristic of our modern rushed mobile society, than as a deep failure in the way I live and relate.
My cat Lilac is now painfully thin from renal failure. I just started her on a new food which she eats enthusiastically and apparently without ill effect, so perhaps the end is a little delayed, but it is clearly coming. I grieve not only her impending loss, but also the fact that she is my only close companion. Meanwhile I enjoy seeing her sprawled luxuriously in the sun-warmed upstairs room, and treasure each moment when she seeks me out, purring.
