I couldn't make this up.

Priests come by every few days to comfort her as calendar pages fall closer to a 93rd birthday she may not see.

Her eldest daughter's calendar is about to mark the thirty-day anniversary of a double mastectomy. The daughter's daughter, just 40, continued to nurse her son of ten months until exploratory surgery revealed a rare cancer thriving within her.

Three women...mothers...daughters, all in one bloodline, all waging different battles with different defenses and strategies and chances, with compromised defenses.

Worded comfort seems to offer little, leaving me to provide presence and prayers--yet I'm feeling as flat as those calendar pages which eventually, relentlessly render extinction to all known memories.

Parachutes don't guarantee soft landings, especially the times you know y0u can't even jump.