The books we are not ready to read yet

It was a book I thought would be just right up my alley. I found it at the library, it was a memoir (a genre I love to read), it was about England (I am an Anglophile and my sister is currently living there so I thought it would be good to learn more about the country), and it hinted at being funny. Here you go read the back jacket blurb for yourself (Ben Hatch Are We Nearly There Yet?)

It started out okay. In fact it was good. But then a certain incident was inserted into the narrative and my foreboding nerve was stimulated. Something was around the corner and I wasn't going to like it. I kept going. Then it struck like the blow that I received just last January 2nd - Stage IV Cancer. There is nothing that can be done. There are only months. Enjoy what time you have left. I'm sorry Ben Hatch, but I had to put your book down and return it to the library. My pain was too raw and I had no space in my heart to carry yours as well. I was still trying to process my own grief. I have a great deal of empathy for you but I couldn't go on.

There are several of those stories over the last few months I have tried to read. Long before Dad's illness I had read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Pausch shared with us the challenge of living out the end of one's life fully knowing of the outcome that awaits someone who's cancer can not be cured. I thought I could handle reading his widow's memoir Dream New Dreams. I'm sorry Jai Pausch but I couldn't do it. Watching my mother's grieving and knowing the pain she was going through putting her new life in order, I couldn't bear another widow's challenges as well. Perhaps one day I will be able to go back and read these memoirs by these talented writers and learn from their life lessons but for today I have my own story to process and write.