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Charles and Kara
Jun. 8th, 2025 09:52 pmMy friend Kara started a cancer blog when she got her terminal diagnosis, and after she died, her husband kinda took over the blog. His post today was kinda gut-wrenching and I have visited some VERY dark places today too, so I felt compelled to reply, I don't know Charles very well so maybe it was too much but oh well, chronic over-sharer, can't stop won't stop.
I Can Tell You in Just Two Words... but You Won't Like It
Writer: Kara [sic - it's Charles now, her widower]
My iPhone alarm goes off.
As always, Kara is to my right, smiling down at me.
From an 11" x 14" print hanging on the wall.
Light is pouring in through the window. The temperature is supposed to climb into the nineties today. Sunlight makes me want to hide... but the one blanket I’m covered with is making me sweat.
I roll out of bed for my first cup of coffee.
Another morning with no one to say hi to.
Instead, a text on my phone tells me I’m at risk of losing my driving privileges if I don’t pay an outstanding bill for a traffic violation. Report-spam-to-my-wireless-provider time suck: Activate.
Albert Camus in the cloud.
Sisyphus blocking callers, entering verification codes, unsubscribing to email lists, trying not to sneeze during a face ID, clicking on URLs that take him to the same useless FAQ page... his smile is a Face With Tears of Joy emoji.
What is the emoji for the feeling of outlasting? Just... outlasting?
My stomach hurts.
Like a fist twisting tinfoil in a drum full of hot ash.
This will be my twentieth month without her.
Two years ago today, Kara left her immunotherapy treatment in a wheelchair. Foreshadowing of sepsis.
Six years ago next Thursday, I met her in the infusion room for her first chemotherapy appointment.
She gave me a small donut cake to celebrate my forty-eighth birthday. Yep, another year closer to 50. And there I was, spending it in a room I usually only thought about in connection with my grandmothers or my mother.
The chemo drips... the people everywhere in reclining chairs with the same cells going rampant inside them... crazy. With 6.-something hemoglobin in her body, Kara ate some pizza from American Dream down the street.
Now that I think about it, that’s a pretty appropriate name for a power-up source while she sat through her first test of chemical endurance in the pursuit of longer life.
Kara's first chemo, June 12, 2019 [photo of Kara in a sleeveless rocker tank and a box of pizza making a thumb's up]
Next Sunday, she turns 55—old enough to order her first 55+omelette with hash browns and a poached egg from Denny’s.
The real scam isn’t paying off a fake traffic ticket to the DMV, it’s thinking we can control how long we live if we exercise, go to the doctor, etc.
Both of us had lost too many loved ones to go for that BS.
But I won’t rant about that again. Not now.
The big question is: Does this get any easier?
Fuck no.
I see couples holding hands as they walk down the street. Dancing together. Waiting in line at Les Schwab’s.
I see Kara taking her last breaths, one hand in mine, collapsing into herself.
I see Kara scolding me for wearing a clip-on tie and a dickey before we started dating, the two of us still teenage coworkers stocking milk and doing carry-outs at the neighborhood grocery store.
What is the emoji for the feeling of outlasting? Just... outlasting?
Sometimes I think I’m driving around in Hell. But maybe that’s being unfair to Hell. Hell has got to be an improvement over this world. No phone trees, no useless FAQ pages that link to the same non-answers, no verification codes.
A Spotify free trial offer that rejects you. A Domino’s reward that can’t be redeemed. An endlessly going-nowhere, self-perpetuating disappearing act that keeps folding in on the ghosts of the life that fell out from under you.
One of the few things that makes me feel like going on in this spam-scam shit show is talking about Kara with anyone who will listen.
I realized that is why I have been writing on her blog ever since she Sparkled On.
I wish I had something more uplifting to say right now. But I wanted to get something out as the days get hotter and slide into the two-year mark of my wife’s last months on earth.
As Kara used to do, I promise I will have more fun things to say in the future.
I won’t take it personally if you unsubscribe. But hopefully, you found some seeds of deeper truth in something I’ve said here. At the very least, you got this far without being transferred to a nonexistent department.
If you miss Kara like I do, press or say ONE.
That’s all I’ve got for now.
Until next time.
—Charles Austin Muir
Diagnosis
Way Back Machine
Personal Essay
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serafaery
a few seconds ago
I got that same text this morning. Thanks for making me feel less alone, in more ways than one. I miss Kara's magic and think of her often, I am grateful that you are still writing here, keeping this vigil, it helps. She is the sparkliest, her brightness feels just as bright, to me, when I think of her. I turned 50 and six months beforehand my body began to revolt in ways that made it very clear that no amount of kale or high-rev cardio will keep the pain of osteoarthritis from poorly-shaped joints at bay. I don't get to run into my 70s. I don't get to ice skate, run, or rock climb at all anymore, and no amount of healthy habits will change that. It's a tough pill to swallow and most folks aren't ready. Very few understand or can hear me, even doctors. I feel newly awakened, in a kind of nauseating way. I know Kara would understand and hear me in a way very few others ever could. We both had parents who did the best they could but just didn't know how to parent and died too young, I don't have very many friends in that circumstance who aren't deep into their substances - no judgment, people are allowed to cope however they need to. It's just hard to connect with someone through a constant haze of weed or alcohol or whatever. I miss my connection with Kara, she was a singular kind of strong and sweet and funny and I'm so grateful to have been able to shimmer alongside her for a bit, I am better for it. I often feel like I'm slogging through a hellscape too - I have no one who will really miss me when I go, and that makes me sad sometimes (I plan to outlive my spouse but we all know how those kinds of plans go, not really up to me). I really miss her. I imagine she would want you to keep creating. But of course, that's up to you, you know what's right for you better than anyone. I'm so sorry it hurts so much. It all feels very wrong and bad, cancer always feels this way to me, and I have probably said too much, just, I hope you also find some leftover glitter stuck to your skin now and then :)
I Can Tell You in Just Two Words... but You Won't Like It
Writer: Kara [sic - it's Charles now, her widower]
My iPhone alarm goes off.
As always, Kara is to my right, smiling down at me.
From an 11" x 14" print hanging on the wall.
Light is pouring in through the window. The temperature is supposed to climb into the nineties today. Sunlight makes me want to hide... but the one blanket I’m covered with is making me sweat.
I roll out of bed for my first cup of coffee.
Another morning with no one to say hi to.
Instead, a text on my phone tells me I’m at risk of losing my driving privileges if I don’t pay an outstanding bill for a traffic violation. Report-spam-to-my-wireless-provider time suck: Activate.
Albert Camus in the cloud.
Sisyphus blocking callers, entering verification codes, unsubscribing to email lists, trying not to sneeze during a face ID, clicking on URLs that take him to the same useless FAQ page... his smile is a Face With Tears of Joy emoji.
What is the emoji for the feeling of outlasting? Just... outlasting?
My stomach hurts.
Like a fist twisting tinfoil in a drum full of hot ash.
This will be my twentieth month without her.
Two years ago today, Kara left her immunotherapy treatment in a wheelchair. Foreshadowing of sepsis.
Six years ago next Thursday, I met her in the infusion room for her first chemotherapy appointment.
She gave me a small donut cake to celebrate my forty-eighth birthday. Yep, another year closer to 50. And there I was, spending it in a room I usually only thought about in connection with my grandmothers or my mother.
The chemo drips... the people everywhere in reclining chairs with the same cells going rampant inside them... crazy. With 6.-something hemoglobin in her body, Kara ate some pizza from American Dream down the street.
Now that I think about it, that’s a pretty appropriate name for a power-up source while she sat through her first test of chemical endurance in the pursuit of longer life.
Kara's first chemo, June 12, 2019 [photo of Kara in a sleeveless rocker tank and a box of pizza making a thumb's up]
Next Sunday, she turns 55—old enough to order her first 55+omelette with hash browns and a poached egg from Denny’s.
The real scam isn’t paying off a fake traffic ticket to the DMV, it’s thinking we can control how long we live if we exercise, go to the doctor, etc.
Both of us had lost too many loved ones to go for that BS.
But I won’t rant about that again. Not now.
The big question is: Does this get any easier?
Fuck no.
I see couples holding hands as they walk down the street. Dancing together. Waiting in line at Les Schwab’s.
I see Kara taking her last breaths, one hand in mine, collapsing into herself.
I see Kara scolding me for wearing a clip-on tie and a dickey before we started dating, the two of us still teenage coworkers stocking milk and doing carry-outs at the neighborhood grocery store.
What is the emoji for the feeling of outlasting? Just... outlasting?
Sometimes I think I’m driving around in Hell. But maybe that’s being unfair to Hell. Hell has got to be an improvement over this world. No phone trees, no useless FAQ pages that link to the same non-answers, no verification codes.
A Spotify free trial offer that rejects you. A Domino’s reward that can’t be redeemed. An endlessly going-nowhere, self-perpetuating disappearing act that keeps folding in on the ghosts of the life that fell out from under you.
One of the few things that makes me feel like going on in this spam-scam shit show is talking about Kara with anyone who will listen.
I realized that is why I have been writing on her blog ever since she Sparkled On.
I wish I had something more uplifting to say right now. But I wanted to get something out as the days get hotter and slide into the two-year mark of my wife’s last months on earth.
As Kara used to do, I promise I will have more fun things to say in the future.
I won’t take it personally if you unsubscribe. But hopefully, you found some seeds of deeper truth in something I’ve said here. At the very least, you got this far without being transferred to a nonexistent department.
If you miss Kara like I do, press or say ONE.
That’s all I’ve got for now.
Until next time.
—Charles Austin Muir
Diagnosis
Way Back Machine
Personal Essay
9 views
0 comments
4 likes.
Write a comment...
serafaery
a few seconds ago
I got that same text this morning. Thanks for making me feel less alone, in more ways than one. I miss Kara's magic and think of her often, I am grateful that you are still writing here, keeping this vigil, it helps. She is the sparkliest, her brightness feels just as bright, to me, when I think of her. I turned 50 and six months beforehand my body began to revolt in ways that made it very clear that no amount of kale or high-rev cardio will keep the pain of osteoarthritis from poorly-shaped joints at bay. I don't get to run into my 70s. I don't get to ice skate, run, or rock climb at all anymore, and no amount of healthy habits will change that. It's a tough pill to swallow and most folks aren't ready. Very few understand or can hear me, even doctors. I feel newly awakened, in a kind of nauseating way. I know Kara would understand and hear me in a way very few others ever could. We both had parents who did the best they could but just didn't know how to parent and died too young, I don't have very many friends in that circumstance who aren't deep into their substances - no judgment, people are allowed to cope however they need to. It's just hard to connect with someone through a constant haze of weed or alcohol or whatever. I miss my connection with Kara, she was a singular kind of strong and sweet and funny and I'm so grateful to have been able to shimmer alongside her for a bit, I am better for it. I often feel like I'm slogging through a hellscape too - I have no one who will really miss me when I go, and that makes me sad sometimes (I plan to outlive my spouse but we all know how those kinds of plans go, not really up to me). I really miss her. I imagine she would want you to keep creating. But of course, that's up to you, you know what's right for you better than anyone. I'm so sorry it hurts so much. It all feels very wrong and bad, cancer always feels this way to me, and I have probably said too much, just, I hope you also find some leftover glitter stuck to your skin now and then :)
