All Comments on 'A Long Good-bye'

Not up to your usual outstanding quality; far too depressing.

Sorry, I'm usually a fan of your work, but, as the first commentator said, this was rather depressing at the end. My wife died of cancer nearly 20 years ago, and your story and hers have many similarities. but the ending spoiled it, especially as we never found out who the dobber was.

And the start of the relationship with Sarah was FAR too quick, given the level of grief shown earlier.

If I wasn't just barely putting one foot in front of another I would be tempted to visit Australia! CMM really has great skill in producing characters and in dialogue.

In the specific story I note that at least she was able to say good-bye to her family and to him! My wife will not know what is going on, if I manage to hang in there for her.

The organ donor bit was horrifying and anonymous information is a terrible problem. They were invented to help in the struggle against organized crime which will make witnesses disappear, but they probably are very efficient in hitting innocents and much less effective against crime lords...

The subject is depressing yet realistic. Your treatment of it is magnificent and an example I hope I could follow, if and when I am presented with the circumstances. If you have not personally experienced this, and I pray you have not, you have a very powerful imagination. Thank and bless you for sharing this story with me and the world. Peace

Marrying a woman so soon is a big big mistake. Unless the marriage died years ago, which was not the case here. That the kids were pushing the remarriage is scary to the point of weird.

So the plot was beloved wife had a lingering death from cancer, family had no conflicts at all. Police fucked up the organ donation, and he marries his personal assistant right away and the family, including the dead one, all agreed.

Needed conflict and more plot to make a good story IMO.

dont know if Australian law allows for civil suits in these cases but this one begs for it by the donars family and the families of those that died because of the lack of organs. If the wife had already given the blessing for the wedding and both were willing why delay at all? It is highly likely that the tipster in this story had an agenda that did not include hiim marrying her and was trying to derail it. My wife was diagnosd with terminal cancer and she immediately set about looking for a woman to take her place as my partner and to be a mother for our children. Luckily she beat that first round but the chemos almost killed her. And yes, years later she is still stage 4 on chemo, fighters fight.

CMM, I have been following your stories, and while I may not always agree with your, subject matter, I find that I am always in for a well written, thought provoking read. Thank you for you efforts.

This story was so well done that I would have thought it was based on reality. Then, you kind of mucked it up in the last few paragraphs IMHO. The move by Sarah is much too soon given the love he had for his wife and her very recent death.

. . . I was jarred by the abrupt juxtaposition of the police action right at the end of the wife's passing. I realize that this was intentional to highlight the traumatic effect on the surviving family, but it sort of hit me right between the eyes. It also left me wondering who had made the accusation to the police and why, and this never came out. As for the suddenness of asking Sarah to marry the hero, you didn't say that they'd get married right away, only that all the family thought they should get married, and he'd ask her. They could have an engagement long enough to prevent scandalous rumors, and then tie the knot. So I didn't see that as a problem, as much as the members of the Anonymous family did.

I wonder why people who don't have enough talent to carry your laptop, will pick apart a well written story, and then hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Why add a critique if they haven't the balls to stand behind their words?

carry it with them to the end gracefully. TK U MLJ LV NV

Super,,, BUT why the hurried ending....Tell us about Jessica s story,, trying to stop something like that happening again.. Lets hear it ...........best Regards JR

Nice job -

You did a hell of a job getting the point across - it is a huge gift from the departed to the living and should be treasured -

He found 2 perfect women to love him - lucky motherfucker - most of us are lucky to find one before we die -

Having recently lost my wife after a year of rapidly growing cancer, I felt very much in tune with the tone of the first half of the story. The long relationship between the two was longer than mine, but still reminiscent of my 2 decades of companionship and I was very positively disposed to this story. Then came the completely independent and out of synch story of the tragedy of the donor organs and I found it very disruptive to the flow of the original story. On top of that comes the hidden romance of the husband and his office assistant. Where did that come from? So we have three stories: the death, the organ mess and the up-coming romance with the secretary. Add them all up and you have a very unsatisfactory story. 2*

This author has a history of very good writings, but I have recently read two that were mediocre at best. I have been personally chastised by another commenter claiming that criticism such as mine is causing authors to limit their writing and I am partly responsible for the deterioration of the quality of writing on Literotica. Maybe that's part of today's society where people cannot face public scrutiny and must be fed pap to make them happy. Ah for the days when criticism prompted people to work that much harder to achieve excellence.

A wonderful story. I had an emotional attachment to it. Not from the loss of my wife, but I felt the pain the husband felt.

The story is real good and a tear jerk but it is evident by the last of the story the author had an agenda - organ donation. And how people suffer when police action corrupts the honest good of the organ donation - there was no real reason why the organs could not be harvested and used as intended as there was plenty of other remains left for toxicology testing.

If the authors intent was to write this story to raise a focus on this issue he failed to complete the story. Was police/DA procedures changed especially when she was under hospital control in a terminal state? What was the context of the community - outrage at the police/DA or suspicion of Gordon? How could Gordon remain in that town if the community went negative on him?

But worse the ignorant/jealous informant appears to have gotten off scott-free not paying for their spiteful meddling or in making a false police report. What happen to this informant who killed 4 other people? This informant needs to pay a severe penalty and not just of conscious!!!

Sadly not only our author here but most people everywhere don't really know about the conditions and circumstances of organ donation.

1. There is no way a cancer patient would be eligible as donor of life saving organs. That would be much too dangerous for the receiving patients because of potentially undetected spread of the cancer.

2. There is no way any potential donor would be allowed to die in the way described, with family present, taking their time to say good bye to the loved ones. Life saving organs - with the exeption of one kidney, one lung and some partial organs - can only be extricated (explanted) from brain dead or cardiac dead patients, after the patient is DECLARED dead, but before body tissues are desoxygenated. In the case of cardiac death, there is only a very short time frame between the cardiopulmonary arrest, the legal declaration of death and the start of the machinery overtaking the function of the heart and lungs, i.e. two to five minutes. Sometimes a decision is made to not resuscitate a potential organ donor, because doctors THINK the patient will not be able to regain a state from where they can start to become healthy again. There are several ethical problems especially with declaration of cardiac (cardiopulmonary) death of potential donors.

2.a) This does never ever happen with cancer patients.

2.b) The donor must be prepared for explantation usually before he is actually dead / declared dead, and then the body MUST be KEPT oxygenated (on ventilator, cardiopulmonary machinery) and special medication until the time, when the explantation team is ready. This can require severals hours, in extreme even a day or two.

It's a lot more complicated than that, but this is basically why the author is sadly mistaken with the 'organ donation' part of the plot line in this story.

That being said, I want to add that CMM is normally a very good writer!

NO NO NO. Sarah is NOT "new Miranda"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Would have given a 5 except for that!! That last sentence is so denigrating to Sarah. Totally out of tune with the rest of the story. I normally like your writing, but you really did a pratfall with , like putting a cherry tomato on a sundae instead of a cherry.

Regards,

Paul

Sad story with a happy ending?

Where is the arrest of the snitch who told the police that Miranda had have killed? She/he killed four transplant recipients. That’s at manslaughter.

Great, but it is a tear-jerker.

Well worth the red time.

I won't rate this story, my love is missing due I couldn't express my feelings 2 her, my own parents represented there daughter and fucked up with my love.

WOW! Very well written story. I thought up until the police arrived that it was an excellent story about a loving family's life. The police part is just so hard to believe and or stomach. Their actions remind me of the modern day "Karens" and very biased news reporting of the current, sad state of USA.