I'm still waiting and following up on the cancer thing. It's complicated, because it's the VA, and I'm traveling and away from my usual network.

The first doctor was sure it was cancer. The second one was confident it wasn't. The third one thinks probably not, but we're doing further tests to find out for certain. It'll be a couple of weeks, or maybe a month or two, before I really know.

My prayer is actually only that God's will be done. If he has an important purpose still for me to fulfill here, then okay. If not, I'm ready to go home. In fact, I'm fairly certain that if it is, I'm not going to seek treatment except for palliative care--pain management, that is. It will depend on the exact nature and stage, and some other factors. But I don't want to stay here badly enough to go through chemo and all that. They say that cancer survival is most likely in those with a strong will to fight to live, and I no longer have that.

If it is time for me to go, it's been a pretty good final year of my life. Traveling around the country with an unbelievably loving and sweet, stunningly beautiful young Italian girl, seeing wonderful and beautiful things, experiencing what it is to be loved, is really not a bad way to end one's life. Of course, a pall was cast over our time together by Adina's death. My grief and sadness, although mostly remaining beneath the surface, kept me from being as active and joyful in it all as I otherwise would have been--I didn't even realize how much (although she tried to tell me) until I was able to reflect on it in hindsight. But that's just another reason to be okay with going myself; outliving one's child means one will never truly be happy again.