Coupon Code

In order to reserve the right to eventually publish a hard copy of my book if I so choose I have to set a certain price for the e-book. But I like bargains so I offer one to potential book buyers. To get 40% off, here's a coupon code good till July 19th: DG75F

Book Published - Yikes!

Death bed requests should be taken seriously.

I always thought if I ever got one I would be non-committal and then I wouldn't be obliged one way or another. (At this point you should probably be asking yourself why I'd ever thought through how I would respond to a death bed request.) I underestimated the power of someone I love asking me to do something before she died.

We became friends before she was diagnosed with cancer. I have lupus amongst other nasty things and she came home from a vacation and asked me if my bones hurt. I said no, my joints hurt. She said her bones hurt.  I said that's not normal; go see a doctor. It was bone cancer. Bone cancer is terminal. People don't recover from bone cancer. It was horrible.

I have a lot of health problems, and I mean a lot. I am riddled with chronic illnesses. I don't like people to know the extent to which I've had to modify my life to live with them and thrive but I let her in because she was the only person who, instead of looking at the way I lived my life in horror understood what I was dealing with.We laughed about them.

This is the power of friendship. You can laugh at debilitating chronic illnesses. You can laugh at terminal cancer. We called bone cancer a chronic illness. We laughed at her wig. We laughed at people's reactions. We laughed when I'd get diagnosed with something new. It made it all more bearable.

And we cried. She call when she didn't feel up to visitors. Crying usually happened on the phone, laughing usually happened in person. I guess because if I was with her we were both feeling relatively good.

She mentioned she was running out of things to read during chemo. As a friend I naturally wanted to help with that. I made book suggestions. She wanted to read my book. So I let her. She loved it because she loved me.

It took years for her to go because she is a fighter. I saw her for the last time a few weeks before she died. I knew it was the last time, she knew it was the last time. After that she was in and out of consciousness and slept most of the time. Her family told me she was hardly ever lucid after that and when she was, it wasn't for long. And I got an e-mail.

The e-mail had a request in it. Publish the book.

I didn't want to. I didn't say one way or the other whether I would. I sent a gushy e-mail back. I don't know if she ever saw it.

And then I sat on the book with this request niggling at the back of my head. A year passed and it got worse. I couldn't stop thinking about her and how in the last clear moments she had she'd taken the time to e-mail me and ask me to do something for her. Wasn't her life and her death worth a sacrifice on my part to do this one small thing?

So I published the book. Not enough. I told people about the book. No. I feel I really have to do this thing. Which is simply not my style. I'm a very private person who is effective at masquerading as an open person if the need arises. But she knew me and knew me well and I think any effort I put forth she will understand is uncomfortable and as long as I reach out of my comfort zone it will be enough and maybe that was the motive behind the request.

I miss my friend. No one understood the way she did. And this is for her.