It was a somewhat painful experience seeing someone slowly face a doom foretold and not being able to do a thing about it. In this particular circumstance the best one could hope for is that she will pass away content with her life. Failing that being able to pass away painlessly.
It was about this time that many of our own family and good friends come forward to provide much needed emotional support, but unfortunately what came with them was the painful and irksome desire to help my mom physically. Each one of them has some kind of great medicinal cure for pain, or heard somewhere that consuming/doing/praying certain things will help her.
Most of these advices range from the homeo remedies to new age ideas to the ever popular traditional Chinese remedies. During these times I can never look at them in the eye and none of them noticed - for which I'm glad. I'm also infinitely glad that none of them noticed my clinched fists and grinding teeth.
I ask myself "Are these people serious?" The cancer has reached the terminal phase and they're trying to peddle me completely useless home remedies?" Don't get me wrong, I call these people friends any other time of the year and found their company pleasant. However all their good intentions ever achieved was to pick at an open wound on someone who has a reputation for a short fuse.
The last time was the benefits of a fasting with apple ciders. All I could do was avert my eyes keep my head down and tell them that they really should speak to my dad about this because I'm not in charge of my mom's diet or meals. The simple truth was that if he had persisted I might have physically assaulted one of them.
The truly heart breaking thing is that sometimes these talks give my mom false hope - gives her a momentary hope only to be destroyed again times over in the next examination. It was about that time that I was reminded of a proverb that is the title of this post "The path to hell is paved with good intentions"
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