Can't forget

 It feels like a long time ago yet I can get pulled back into memories of chemotherapy and that year pretty easily. I found out yesterday that a friends' father was diagnosed with bladder and prostate cancer, and it's hitting me harder than I thought it would. He has only ever been a sweet, quiet man in my life. He always kisses me on the cheek when we see each other, and it's only ever felt respectable and/or European. In another life, he might have been my father in law. He has watched me grow up from afar, and I know very little about him personally. But I feel so sad that he and his wife are having to go through those early horrific days of invasive procedures and waiting... waiting for test results and getting vague answers and waiting more to see how treatments play out. When it was my turn I just kept my head down. I was in school and working full time those days. I resigned from a volunteer board of directors I was sitting on, took an incomplete in two classes, and continued playing in a Japanese Taiko drumming group and working as an interim executive director for a small nonprofit. I went to the sweat lodge and prayed and prayed, surrounded myself with the loving people I had come to know. Even had a circle of people sing around me for healing. I think about what would happen now if I had to go through all of that here in the Bay Area. Would people be as available to participate in my healing and recovery? Would the stress of raising children on top of it all be too much? Intellectually I know I would get through it, but at what cost? I'd have to stuff so many feelings, stay tough for the kids' sake. Really not helpful to think about that right now, since I'm healthy and am not going through anything like that right now. I guess it's just triggering to think about someone close to me having to go through a similar experience. Is that PTSD? I dunno. I'm safe here now on my couch, with my husband and daughters asleep peacefully in their beds.