You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rea's Song)

On March 28, 2020, I began a journal as my wife Rea, was nearing a pivotal point in her journey to uncover the underlying cause of some increasingly problematic medical issues.

For the most part the text of this book comes directly from that journal. It has been edited as little as possible, mostly to correct typos, improve clarity, make the formatting consistent and remove some items which were copyrighted by people other than me.

This account is raw and unfiltered.

Rea-pronounced like "area" without the first 'A'-was my soulmate and inseparable partner for almost 27 years. She stood just under 5 feet tall. As her hair greyed in later years she took to highlighting the ends in a dark shade of purple. She was kind, inquisitive, and hard working. She smiled frequently, and cared deeply about her friends, family and the world around her. She loved music, especially live music and until very near the end, all I had to do was play Phish or the Grateful Dead and she would smile and start moving to the music.

Her unique name came from her mother who combined a blend of family initials-Roy, her dad, and Ernest and Albert, her maternal uncles.

I always believed Rea was one in a million. Tragically, I was right, but not in the way I ever would have chosen.