Truly realizing that you're gonna die is a hard and slow lesson to learn.

I got through a nasty bout with cancer a couple of years ago without ever seriously considering THAT my end might be near. (Actually, it was the treatment that was really debilitating, moreso than the disease itself, but it worked.) I was told from the git-go that the recovery rate from my type of cancer (in the neck, on the right tonsil) was very promising, but thAt the treatment was especially difficult. I never doubted that I'd recover, and indeed the predictions were correct.

My dear sweet wife just got a terminal diagnosis of Primary Progressive Aphasia, a relatively rare degenerate neurological condition with no known cause and no known treatment. She is slowly losing her abilty to speak as her brain is atrophying and shrinking, starting with the speech center. She has at least six years to live, and with luck as many as 18-20, but no real prospects of getting any better. This is NOT dementia, at least not until the final stages; she can think, reason, remember, function, etc., but just can't find the words to express what she'd like to say, and so she's beginnning to appear demented to strangers (and even to friends who don't yet understand).

We've been married since 1973, always got along fine (in contrast to so many other couples), still look and feel much younger than our actual ages (54 & 59), and always looked forward to growing old together. Now it looks like she's going to grow old in a hurry and then I'll have to grow even older without her.