Where did <em>that</em> come from?

I haven't broken down in a weepy heap in a long time. Today it just snuck up on me and clobbered me.

My friend Jen (aka Apathy) left a comment on my MySpace page. I hardly ever go there anymore...I just don't think of it. I logged in to check it out. I noticed that Becki had left a comment in August. I linked on her name and saw a familiar face among her friends list. Patsy. I linked to her site half expecting it to be gone but there it was. Some song was playing. I don't know what it was. I think her last post was "cancer sucks". I lost it. I couldn't help it. It's so unfair that she died. I couldn't stop the tears. We weren't really close. I wouldn't even go so far as to say we were friends...merely acquaintances on the www. But her illness and how she handled it touched me deeply. I always liked Patsy. She was a genuinely nice person thru and thru. I miss her presence.

It hit me again during this evening's episode of Desperate Housewives. The character Lynette has cancer. While awaiting the results of her last PET scan, she transfers her anxiety and fear onto an opossum who has taken up residence in her garden. She wants so desperately to kill the vermin that has entered their lives. When she learns the news that she is cancer free she walks outside and sees the crumpled body of the opossum and collapses in tears of guilt. I lost it for the second time.

Maybe I'm still hanging onto feelings from my Dad's recent bout with colon cancer. I don't know. Maybe I'm having a harder time dealing with it than I thought.