Sunset and moonrise: Reflections on living with terminal illness,
Gail C. Walker, Ph.D., Alfred University

To my colleagues, friends, and loved ones:

I hope you will allow me to send one letter to you all, because I simply do not have the energy to do this individually. I have taken the liberty of providing an overview of what has been happening for me, in what is one of the worse bits of news of my life, and adding my biography (or obituary) at the end. I wish I could ease this for those of you that care about me, but I cannot think of a way to soften the blow.

On Monday I thought that I had diverticulitis, a digestive difficulty common in midlife. On Tuesday, I was told I had a "pelvic mass," on Wednesday "ovarian cancer," on Thursday "metastasized ovarian cancer with a compromised lymph system and liver." The good news, if there is any, is that the tumors are confined to the abdomen, and have not yet escaped into the heart, lungs, or brain. The physicians have given me a 5% to 20% chance of being alive a year from now.
[...]
I have learned that I can be more brave for those moments when I must be if I admit and pass through those moments of weakness as they occur, so that they do not accumulate. All of us feel the fear. True courage is not the absence of fear, it is doing what one must with strength and integrity in spite of the fear. Mixed with the fear is mourning. Mourning one's own passing is actually enlightening. We survivors sort priorities consciously, as time and energy become limited. It may hurt the feelings of some family members and loved ones when we are not available to them when they need us to be, but sometimes we must choose to save our energy for those with whom we still have conflicted relationships, or with the ones we need the most. Sometimes it is the people with whom we have a stable and safe relationship that we can choose to ignore in order to use the energy for ourselves or the ones with whom we have unfinished business. We can only hope that those people can feel that it is an honor to be the ones that we can count on, and can understand that even our recurrent silences are an indirect acknowledgment of our love.
Most importantly, I have learned that every moment is precious and fleeting, that every person is unique and irreplaceable. I thank you all for your prayers and kind thoughts, and for the love we have so freely shared. I thank the Creator of All Life for allowing me more time. May the Great Spirit continue to bless us and keep us, in all of the ways in all of our days.

NOTE: I got touched by your comments, but, (un)fortunately I AM NOT LIVING WITH A TERMINAL ILNESS, GAIL C. WALKER IS.