Scott, thank you… I did want to say something that is perhaps out-of-step with other comments. My ex-wife passed a few years ago — no real analogue of your situation — and left nothing for our daughters but a will and a desktop icon on her computer with their names and nothing beneath. She had perhaps waited too long to set down those sentiments she might have hoped would persist in the girls’ lives.
My own father passed in March at 88 years old. I was by his side, his hand in mine, my other on his chest monitoring the final beats of his heart. My visit had followed my brother’s. His final words for my brother were, “It is what it is; nothing lasts forever.” For me? “Thanks for coming.”
That’s all.
Life seldom offers much in the way of closure. But still, absence of closure is like an unhealing wound.
Survival stats are aggregated, and every particular situation is, by definition, unique. So we fight, hope for the best outcomes, but know that the world is not always impressed with our efforts.
Your first 35 years have been remarkable and, were we friends, I’d ask that you create a video memoir for your children as a kind of backup drive, an autobiographical tincture that may serve to infuse their shared family experience in the future, however your health crisis develops.
Clearly, you are, in the deepest sense, a winner. They should know that.
.eskaybee