Before I Go

 By

Colleen Oakley

When I sat down to read this book, I sat down in my big easy chair with my favorite blanket, a big box of tissue and a cup of tea.  I was all ready for a teary afternoon or two as I prepared myself to struggle through a book about dealing with cancer and dying.  I WAS WRONG.  Only someone who has lived through the experience of chemo and the Big “C” and/or shared the final days of a life well spent could have even attempted such a monumental task, as to cause me to be pulling tissue because I am wiping my tears from laughing so hard. 

Colleen gave us a wonderful ray of sunshine for this potentially bleak subject matter that has and can hit so many readers so close to home.  In the telling of the day-to-day struggles of a young couple who are facing the hard fact of stage four cancer and a love affair cut short, she poured out the foibles, and allowed us to see life from the inside out. 
The book made me stop and think, just how important were my priorities?  Would I?  Could I, go out and systematically search for my husband a future wife?  Why did the window caulk stay at the top of her priority list, but never get addressed?  No matter how hard she worked to hold her organized world together, it was slowly unravelling, because nothing was the same-nor would ever be again. 
A good book to help understand what life is like and what it can be like.  Even with the thorns, life’s roses can still be sweet and smell beautiful to the end.

Karen Laird

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