skunks and cancer

I went to Gilda's grief group tonight...I haven't been in ages but I knew I needed to be with people who would readily talk about "dead kids". You might think this group is all about crying and sadness but it is not. We truly laugh about some things and we share deep dark emotions that people who have not had a child die would understand. We are all at different stages of grief and we all experience grief differently but we do indeed grieve.
Tonight the discussion centered around "the elephant in the room" phenomenon that happens at holiday gatherings or any gathering for people who have experienced a death in the family. It reminded me of a time when our beloved dog - not so beloved when this happened - was sprayed by a skunk at 6:30 in the morning before a school day. Jared was in high school, Erik in Junior High and Ethan elementary and fighting cancer. When the dog came inside from his morning constitutional it was all too apparent that he was sprayed. We tried desperately to leave the house quickly so as to assume the stench. Alas, it was not to be so. All three children reported at the end of the day how horrible it was to be at school - Erik actually was taken to the office and given a "loaner uniform" in hopes of reducing the stench. Jared reported it was his worst day ever! I actually had children at school look at me funny but not say a word even though they knew it was me that was stinking the place up! Ethan and I had an appointment at Mary Free Bed to review his physical agility from Chemotherapy afterschool that same day. When we arrived, you could tell everyone knew we smelled but nobody said a word. It wasn't until our doctor came in and acknowleged that she too had experienced a dog being sprayed by a skunk that someone sympathized with our situtation.
Cancer and now death of a loved one is a lot like that. People around us know what we are going through but they don't want to talk about it for fear of embarrasing us or saying what is obviously true.
As one who has experienced cancer, death of a loved one, and being sprayed by a skunk - 3 times- I am hear to tell you. We want to talk about it, to share our misery, our joy, our laughter over the situation. To know that you love us enough to say - do you know you stink?