I haven't yet texted my sister (she's on Pacific time remember so it won't be until after they're done putting the kiddos to bed in the Seattle area that I text her) nor have I talked to anyone about my conversation with Sabra today yet. (I mean, I told the cat, who HAS met Shauna spent a lot of time with her while she was staying with me and remembers her but has his own finite health issues, and the dog who has never met Shauna but is a Cancer pup and cares deeply about her pack and their emotions. but that's not talking about it with humans.)  I've still just been in my own head and writing about it getting clear with my own self before I talk to anyone about it, via text or on the phone if Miche wants or in person with my parents tomorrow.  It's... easier for me to get my emotions clear to myself as calm as they can be when they move so deep before everything gets agitated by the emotions of the other person I'm interacting with talking to. Sabra was best for being the one to tell me and have us reflect each other's grief/pain back between us but in a soothing not agitating way -- she's a Pisces sun Libra rising so we reflect understand each other at a deeply intuitive unspoken level and she's like a bonus younger sister and in a recent past life she was my younger sister as well and we both have the similar type of ADHD where we can pick up exactly where we left off no matter how much time/life we've both been through our relationship between us remains the same. But sometimes I need to get my emotions clear (and clear within my own self) before feeling everyone else's emotions starts agitating my own emotions. My sister Miche will be the first I talk to about it since talking to Sabra.

 If it helps understand the interwoven dynamics of people you've never met... I'm a Libra sun Pisces rising and the eldest, my sister is a Virgo sun Pisces rising (next eldest), Shauna is the miracle baby who was born 3.5 months preemie in the 90s and survived born an Aries sun but would have been a Cancer/Leo cusp sun if full term but she came into this world when she wanted to be born, and Sabra is the baby of us four girls is a Pisces sun Libra rising and looked exactly like me on an 8 year delay when we were younger and she was my younger sister two lives ago. (There's one cousin older than me on that side of the family, Sasha, who is a Leo and half sister to Shauna and Sabra and she was my best friend for the first decade or so of my life but after my grandfather died, she and I had a falling out over me feeling so deeply I was dry eyed couldn't cry at grandpa's funeral and after that she spent more time with her other family than with ours. So for the sake of Shauna's/Sabra's formative years, I was the eldest of our group of four and since our parents co-owned the family business with my grandparents until I was in my teens and my grandma retired and my uncle/aunt didn't want to co-own the business any longer at which point it became just my parents owning it, the four of us grew up closer than most cousins and closer than many half or step siblings do.) 

So anyway. That's why it doesn't surprise me that even without having seen either of them super recently, both Sabra and Shauna wanted one of them to be the one to tell me directly hear it from one of them AND when focusing on Sabra's energy worrying about her I'd be feeling the weight and heaviness constriction around my heart and when focusing on Shauna's energy worrying about her I'd be feeling that pain she's currently feeling (that is part of why assuming it's already spread to her lymph nodes making it at least stage 3 -- breast cancer typically doesn't cause pain until it's spread far enough to be in the lymph nodes. And the type Shauna has is the most aggressive fast growing least responsive to treatment type.)

And knowing early didn't help me come to terms with it like it can with difficult things that must be given people's free will choices. I have some residual trauma in me that I've dealt with but not fully (it's the sort of thing may never be fully dealt with because the scars will hurt every time it is in play) around my precogs/prophetic dreams and cancer specifically. It comes from my grandfather making me promise not to tell anyone else in the family I might upset about my contingent precog recurring prophetic dreams about the rat coming out of hiding to gnaw on his inner organs getting bigger and bigger and taunting me that only I knew about it and nobody would believe me, not even my grandfather. He was thinking they were just childish fear coming to terms in dreams with the IDEA of his cancer (then in remission) and I don't blame him for not taking me seriously enough about my dreams about his cancer returning until the day he asked me if they'd gone way because I didn't try to plead with him anymore about getting rid of the rat again and then I answered him sadly he had waited too long and the rat was too big made its nest inside him so nobody could save him from it -- and then he scheduled three months early for his remission checkup asap after I told him how my prophetic dream had changed but it was too late... I wasn't even nine years old yet when the cancer rat eating his inner organs dreams started and so I dealt with all that and internalized it into my inner child from events in my ACTUAL lived childhood. So I do have Cassandra guilt (similar but not the same as survivor guilt) specifically about my precogs around cancer killing loved ones. And that's a me trauma to work through and heal not anything to do with Shauna's journey which is why when it was re-triggered by her desires I didn't push it even though I knew carrying this would re-awaken those guilt of playing Cassandra, especially surrounding cancer, that are always dormant wounds in me this life from when I was around 8.5 nearly 9 years old. 

And so when Shauna told me she didn't want to know when she was staying for almost a month in my Spare Oom back in pre covid the last time I saw her, she just wanted to know if she'd have time to say her goodbyes to those she loved, I intentionally asked her, "Are you sure you don't want to know now to try to change it or keep an eye out to change course early?" and she just shook her head laughed told me, "O Dani. You've always fought your precogs that you don't like even when you can't win the fight and my whole life I've watched the immutable ones come true despite all your denying and fighting. Can you tell me this is one of your warning ones can be changed not one of your immutable ones?" when I shook my head sadly she continued, "If it can't be changed, there's nothing for me to fight and win, so I don't want to know now. I'll know in the future and then I'll know what you're carrying now and across the years between. We'll talk about it again once we're then."  And later on that  night she said to me out of nowhere, "You always thought you'd die young never planned for growing old even though you wanted it. But I've always known I'd be the first of the four of us to die. That I'd choose to leave this life on my terms and my timing same as I came into it. It's actually very comforting to me to know that I'll have time to say my goodbyes to all of you and it won't be too sudden for that, it means it won't be by my own hand in a dark moment that I leave early. It means I'll win the fight against those demons in me."

The one thing I want to ask Shauna about and haven't yet but will when I have the opportunity is... knowing she's a singer and songwriter (mostly emo-metal as her genre, but piano as her instrument of choice other than her voice -- think VERY inspired by Evanescence in her formative years) and that through some of her hardest times it was her music that  helped her through and to help others... I want to ask her when she's ready so it isn't a burdensome "have to" but a healing act for her if she has songs she hasn't yet recorded (even ones she hasn't yet written as she goes through her choices and coming to terms with everything) but would LIKE to get recorded before her finite time comes to its close. I don't know how to give her that, she doesn't have the money for professional studio time and her parents don't and I don't, and I don't think any of the musicians I know well enough I could ask them that for free are the right genres and types to be able to give her that... But it's one of the things I want to ask her about and find a way to help her make that dream real with the time she has. No matter how many or few songs she has she wants to record with the energy and time and life force remaining in her current body. 

It's probably the most meaningful and important gift I can offer her in the next upcoming months and check with her if she wants to use her remaining time for that once she's in a place that she's ready to see me not just her core family and knows her timelines better and can decide if that's an investment of herself she wants to make with what remains. But I want to at least ask and offer to try to help her make that happen because I know how much her songwriting and music means to her and has always meant to her for how she experiences/handles the world and what heals/centers her and what she has always wanted to leave behind her once her time comes due. And. I don't know that anyone else in the family would recognize how important it might be to her to get those songs (already written and yet to be written through her transition time) recorded and finished to the best she can with the time she has. It's not really something anyone else in the family is likely to understand unless she articulates that it's a meaningful thing she wants -- and, she might not articulate that to family members she doesn't think could help her realize it or wouldn't prioritize it because they would prioritize the time WITH her, y'know? You would need to be a creative artist type and to have spent a lot of your life invested with musicians and songwriters specifically to understand that in her. It's the sort of thing another musician/songwriter would likely understand better than her core family members.

Actually. I know exactly who to ask to help her who's physically in the area. She won't be able to help get a finished product as professional or polished as Shauna might want and not be able help her with the musician caliber layers (though I have a couple people I could ask to ask around for that if Shauna wanted. But my mom's stepsister Cathy C (not to be confused with her sister Kath or her best friend since high school bonus aunt to me Cathy K) was a social worker before retiring and lives in the area and has gone through her own battles with breast cancer (currently on chemo again just to hope to hold it in remission) and since her battle with breast cancer realized she had songs in her she needed to share and while she's much more country than Shauna would ever be interested in, she would be a good connection to talk to about the cancer itself and the intersections of mortality being extra finite and local ways to be able to get her songs recorded even if she doesn't feel she ever truly finished or polished them the way she would want... 

That's not everything I need for trying to gift Shauna this to help ease her heart/soul in the time she has by helping her record her songs before she can't. But I think having her meet and have Cathy as a resource of someone who can understand it better from within not just from without is a piece of helping Shauna have the sort of closure she would choose on her own terms as a human and an artist. It's one piece but not all the pieces I will need to help Shauna realize this in her remaining time, but I feel internally certain that I will have all the pieces (or how to reach for them) in the exact right timing unfolding to help Shauna not feel she left this undone for herself and/or to leave for the healing/growth of others.

It's not much and I don't know if she'll want it, but I believe it would be the most meaningful way to express my love/understanding of Shauna qua Shauna and the best support I could offer her through the time she has without being intrusive assuming my own centrality where that wouldn't be appropriate at this time.  A way to help her re center on HER and her self expression and art and what she can still give to her loved ones and the world, not spend the time centered about mortality or the cancer diagnosis (help her regain her "Fuck cancer!" fight for what it's taken from her across her life.)  But only if she wants it when I have the right time/opportunity to bring it up ask her if it's something she wants to spend her time/energy on and that I can work to help her reach for it while she still can.

P.S. Yes. It is very much a part of my own "how I handle group grieving" for me to pour my energy into healing others as best I can (or at least taking away pain if I cannot heal all the way to full health) focus on what I can do to lighten and help others who are hurting (especially the central person) rather than investing in the care of myself.  It tends to manifest as ignoring my own pain (hello Capricorn moon) and trying to figure out what the best memories I can create and give them to carry through the hard times -- when my grandpa was sick again I recognized that what he needed was what could bring him joy and to laugh so I made myself a jester for him except when he needed to serious philosophy talk with me, for my Audrey Pupburn she needed to say her goodbyes to as many of the people/animals she had loved across her lifetime as she could so while I'd normally have kept my grieving quiet coming to terms with it once I could not longer fight the precogs I became very open sharing her story and inviting people to come see her while they could, for Spock who is currently dying of CKD it's that he wants me with him at home as much as possible and to curl up near me if not on me except when he chooses to be alone with his pain not to be alone unless it's by his choice. It's the same motive in me recognizing that for Shauna, the most healing thing to help her transition as gracefully and peacefully on her own terms as possible is to help her express in her music as much or as little as she wants to record that way. And that I'm rather uniquely able to see that truth of hers and to help her realize it if it's what she would choose for her time remaining.

P.P.S. Ooft. My sister took the news pretty much exactly how I expected she would but wanted me to make it very clear she does hope to see Shauna and let her know if that's what Shauna and family want BUT she won't reach out until she knows it will be supportive not intrusive to do so because it's a lot for them right now. I promised to pass her message along and to let her know if/when I know more reaching out to Sabra and Shauna. It's just delicate, especially when the news is so unexpected and recent for them all. Got caught up on everything going on with them so far in 2025 (it's been a lot and I was JUST there til pretty much the end of the year) and learned that actually Jon's work trip flying out tomorrow is him flying out TOMORROW packing tonight when I texted her to ask if she wanted to know tonight or later and she decided to call not text because she was too lazy to read it all instead of talking it hearing it, lol. Didn't realize that he was flying out tomorrow, might have waited to let her know. But also wanted to be sure I told her directly not have her find out on fb somehow or learn Shauna had passed without her even knowing about it.