I am not connected with Jay or his partner on Social Media, so whatever information they are able to put out about his health I am not immediately connected to.  I have found updates through various sources, but of course updating social media is not really a high priority in this situation.

From what I have read, Jay's health is deteriorating quickly.  The updates I have read have devastated me.  I don't find myself able to not *feel* (or guess at, to be honest as we're never really able to know what anyone else is going through, not completely) what he must be going through and I'm so sad for the spirited and lively person he was.

The last update was from nearly a week ago now and he was back in the hospital, hopefully to be stabilized enough to return home to pass there.  

I realize I may not get the opportunity to say goodbye.  That my words of gratitude and love that I sent his way may not be read, may not make it in time.  Or even if they do, that he may have passed by the ability to read or comprehend.  I can not control this.  I may never know if he knows I'm thinking of him.  I may never get a sort of closure.  But that's something I'll have to accept one way or another.

Perhaps I'm not someone he'd be impacted by hearing from.  I doubt I'm a high priority in his life.... memories... we haven't spoken in any way in years.  But I hope, and perhaps it's selfish? but I hope that he has had a happy thought or memory of our time together over those years.  That our story, for the time it happened, is, or was a good in his life.  

I don't know that I'll know when Jay dies.

I check his partner's social media regularly.  I hope and assume she will let us know when he has passed.  But this isn't about me, or those of us who knew him.  It's about him and it's about her.  It's their life.  Their choices.  Their story.  So while she will likely tell folks once he has gone, I likely won't know when it happens.  Just like I didn't know he was dealing with this for the last year and a half.

We can't possibly know everyone's stories.  Sometimes we only barely know the stories of those in our immediate lives.  Those nearby.  Sometimes our very close loved ones are going through things we don't know about.

C-Dawg told me about her diagnosis, but it took her a while.  And even then, the words out of her mouth were "I don't want to tell you this but I have to tell you this".

And think of all the people I have not told about my health and my situation.  

But especially for those removed by time or distance or life... we don't always know.  And that, I'm finding, is extra difficult.

Jay's health is deteriorating.  Quickly.  

I can only wish him as good a death as possible.  He deserves that much in all of this.  He really does.  I don't get the sense it will be long now.  But I'm not there to know.