Passing through the Door

It's Saturday, 11:30 am. This is about the time when Aunt Vonnie and I have our weekly cancer club meeting...but this morning (as she referred to it) she passed through the door. In October Uncle Dick, her one year to the day birth twin, passed through the door thanks to colon cancer. She was diagnosed with the same within days of his moving on. We started our Saturday ritual after that, only to find out in January that I would move from club mascot to member. Thanks to Dick and Vonnie I scheduled my colonoscopy, got diagnosed and got treated. When I reminded Vonnie of her role in my adventure and helping save my life she said she liked to tell people that she GAVE me cancer. Oh the stories we would tell each other - including a frequent "F you cancer" as our club motto. It did our hearts good to say it. Vonnie told me months ago that she always had the image of people on the other side of the door wearing shiny fabric clothes and she was not into that at all. She hoped to be wearing her black turtleneck because she looked really good in it - I have no doubt that's what she is sporting. I asked Vonnie to keep talking to me after she went through the door and she said I would have to be VERY QUIET and listen - unless I was on the edge of a precipise (in which case she said she would tell me to JUMP). So while all of us were getting our phone calls and emails that she had graduated from the cancer club those on the other side were getting the word out that "she's HERE" - Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle Dick, Uncle Bob, Uncle Marion, Aunt Elsie, Josie. Party hearty in another land. Last time we spoke - on her birthday almost two weeks ago, she told me the story about the star. She also told me that when her son Christian, the sweetest child (now man) you will ever meet, was little she asked him when she was old and sick if he would take care of her. He waited to answer - too long for Vonnie's taste - and then he told her "I think you will have to talk to Jesus about that." So she said she cut off his rations right there and then. Of course in the end he WAS there, along with Cindy, Ben, Chauntelle, Shannon, Tricia, and Paris. Uncle Gene stayed the course and they celebrated 50 years together on Tuesday. A gentler kinder person you will never meet. The ying to Vonnie's yang in so many ways. On Tuesday I had the clearest image of Vonnie in her healthiest happiest state come to me as bright as the sun. By Wednesday the image was a memory and when I called Gene later that day she had gone in to a comma. The only other time such a thing has happened to me is when my friend John went into a coma just before he passed through the door so I knew what that was about. Vonnie and I ended our last call with me saying I would call next Saturday and she said we'll take it a week at a time. Ironically, Vonnie signed off the morning after my last chemo session. Or maybe not so ironically. Thanks Vu - love you.
Yours Vonnie (as always) until next week,
Mary