Really. Don't read this.

It's horrible, it's ghastly, and I'm not writing it. I'm not me. I'm gone, and I don't know when or if I'll be returning. Cancer can take a life before it's over, and now I'm this ghost in the world, breathing down your necks, leading you to tears, dark places, the shadiest shadows of your souls.

You see me and you hug me and express whatever wishes or hopes you want, and I don't hear it. I see your eyes, the fear, the sadness. You don't want me to go, and if I were me, that alone would be enough to break my heart. I suppose it's for the best that I bear the brunt as a wisp of a human. I don't know how else to do this. I've never felt old, never once. Even with all I went through before, I never lost confidence in my body's ability to remain strong and hang tough. I'm so betrayed by myself.

I don't know how to look out at a world I've loved with my whole being. From the first daffodils of spring I breathe it all in: the first blades of green grass, the seeds that sprout into leaves on my trees, the stretching daylight hours. Most of all, I live for the emergence of the children on the street. The sounds of their playing into the later evening hours provides the soundtrack of freedom to me. What else is there to do when the homework is done and the kids' baseball championship games are in the record books? Head to Rita's for some water ice, swat the mosquitos, and gather the fireflies. It's so beautiful.

Four tissues already and I've been writing about 20 minutes. I dare not mention my own children. I can barely look at them. I'll save an entry for them.

I don't know how to look at time. Time, which I have recorded day by day, carefully, for more than 30 years of my life, in little datebooks. But I have not had nearly enough of it. I love it, I want to drink it up, remember it. I am the keeper of the memories. I tell everyone about every occasion. If you're reading this, I probably know your birthday.

This is it, in a nutshell. I don't want to go. And yet I am gone. I want to be me, but where am I? I am lost. Can you find me?