Here’s the next set of Q+A from Ilene:

What have you learned about yourself from this experience?

I am stronger and more lovable than I ever imagined.  I am much more than what I do.  I have a great capacity to take what comes my way and make it into something instructive, meaningful and worthwhile.  (Lemonade out of lemons!)  That “gallows humor” is an incredible coping mechanism.  That I can laugh at my losses and in the face of my impending death. (Who would have thought?)  That I have a body, ego that can be angry and sad while my soul can be joyful and compassionate.  (True Gemini to the end.)  That life is about much more than doing stuff and collecting stuff.  It is about developing ourselves fully. 

What have you learned about others?

People deal with things the best they can and from the perspective that they are in.  That others’ beliefs and feelings about death and spirituality control how they relate to illness and impending death in others.  The ability and desire to help and be supportive is much more available than I imagined.  Some people feel gifted and honored to help, rather than burdened.  The desire to know what it is like to face impending death is of great interest to others and is very hard to imagine before we are there.  That with the knowledge that another’s death is imminent often comes a willingness to be more intimate and express things that would otherwise have been kept in.  That in expressing these things people come to terms with feelings and issues that they might otherwise not address.