You Can't Understand My Pain

One more "come say good-bye" call.  One more "dump your life on everyone else and run" imposition on my friends.

You can't understand my pain.  You think you can, but you're wrong.  Let me try to explain.

First of all, this trip was different than the others, Shane died this time.  Our friend Gwen found out something like 4:30 a.m. and immediately drove to Colorado Springs from Gillette Wyoming to comfort us.

Gwen, Michelle and I went to the Sonic drive in for Route 44 drinks.  As we sat and drank our drinks the conversation drifted to the subject of Shane looking in on us from whatever form he was currently in. 

I said, "I think that when we die we enter the realm where God exists and so logically that alters our time perspective to God's time perspective."

Next I asked "Do you believe that?"

Gwen thought and then said that she did.  My next question was totally logical (in my mind anyway).

"If you believe Shane can come watch us, does he watch us when we poop?"

Gwen, who I think got a degree in Theology at some point, went on a long biblical based response that I must admit I didn't listen to very well (in my defense, I'm in a fog like I've never experienced before and I can't even connect with MY thoughts very well).  When she got done talking I said this:


"The bible tells us that from God's perspective a thousand years is the same as a minute.  That means 100 years, a tenth of a thousand, would take about 6 seconds which is a tenth of a minute.  Now figure that Michelle and I probably have around 30 years left before we join him so that would be just under two seconds from Shane's perspective.  Cassandra should show up in about 4 seconds and Devin will take more like 5 or six"

"There's no way they can watch us when we poop - it just happens too fast"

"We believe Shane's joy is complete.  We believed that before he was sick, we believed it when he was going to die, we believe it now when he is dead."

"But it's better than that.  For Shane he was writhing in the pain of his cancer, his brain was shutting down from the ammonia that his liver wasn't clearing out of his system then after 5 hours in hospice on a morphine drip he's in the presence of God and his Grandparents.  Two seconds later he is joined by Michelle and I.  Three seconds after that Cassandra shows up and a second or two later he's with Devin."

All that and he didn't have to watch us poop.

You can't understand my pain.  It causes me tears (like the ones making the monitor fuzzy right now) but more than half the time the tears are tears of joy.  The rest are like the tears when he went away to college...

...only this time it's better.