smiles from a new old friend

I have eluded in the past about the nature of the relationships that I've been lucky enough to be part of recently...another silver lining. We all want the pain to go away, the hope to grow, the tumors to shrink. I'm compelled to try and help each of these families on whatever level I can, to ease their burdon, to offer them a glimpse of hope, to let them know that as long as I can say the words FU angiosarcoma, I will fight for them. Sometimes I break a little and find pieces of myself scattered all over the place. I'll collect up all the shards but might be missing the tiniest shred that ties me back up into a solid woman, impenetrable. Inevitably it'll be lost in some projection of what one of my many friends are suffering through right now. How could I possibly reach into their pain and retrieve it back? Sometimes, though, when I least expect it, I'll see a smile on the face of a new old friend, or get an email that is just dripping in hope. These moments make me realize that humpty never needed his original pieces, just some duck tape and patch work from a group of people all working toward the same goal.