…because at the end of the day, I connected two comments together and realized how horrifying disrespectful it is to one person and how it’s also sadly true for the other. My aunt lays in the hospital with major health issues, all of which are simple peasant girls surrounding Queen Cancer. She needs a higher blood count and has an infection, both of which have to be treated before her next round of chemo. The disease and the chemo are aggressive, so we have to play the time game. Will she get well enough for her next round of chemo? Will she then be able to tolerate chemo?
Before I knew about the infection my aunt has, I said to poeticgrin: I would love to have the flu/sickness right now. I meant it for completely selfish reasons. Get out of work. Sleep. Doing nothing.
I want to be a little sick
When she’s a lot
When a little sick
Turns into intensive care units
To emergency units
To the time of death
To the morgue
To the funeral
To be buried.
Or burned.
Ramblings of a Medicated Lady: Words of Woe by Loria Taylor 
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January 7, 2009 at 8:19 am
PoeticGrin
Words and the timing of them are interesting. Just before my brother died, I was being forced into a school competition on a weekend. Our teacher said the only way out of it would be if a family member died. I said, casually, at lunch with the rest of my eighth-grade friends, “I wish someone in my family would die!”
A couple of nights later he was in a wreck and two weeks later he was dead.
Did I literally mean I wanted my brother to die? Or a family member to die? Of course not. But the timing of my childish, sarcastic, selfish words was curious.
When you said you wanted the flu, I knew what you meant. It was in the context of the things we joke about often – your love of the dark, your love of close quarters, bathroom stalls, and in line with our morbid sense of humor.
You’ve spent more time with your aunt than most in your family. You only want the best for her and you wish her no ill will. You have your selfish moments, but your human. We’re human.