We all spend so much time trying to make sense of things that make no sense. I am no exception to this as you may have picked up from reading earlier posts. We analyze, over think and often live our lives in fear from a simple request, like your boss asking if you can stick around a few minutes after the meeting next week. For me my mind goes to crazy places especially when given time. The typical was I used to deal with this was to worry about it for days and then laugh at myself when it was over for the roller coaster ride I had put myself on. God knows the wear and tear we put our bodies thru doing this. I recently started attending a cancer support group and learned in that group that I was not the only one. One of the attendees described it as the Monkey Brain. I can't think of a better term for it.
Just writing about this I am reminded about the night I called my In-Laws to let them know we would be dropping by the next day to speak with them. By the time we got there the next night I would tell that my poor mother in-law was frazzled and had been up worrying about us all night. It seems that the best way to handle something big like cancer would be face to face, but I felt so bad for putting her thru that. The take away from that for me is that in spite of living only a few miles from each other, we really weren't behaving like family. We could go for months without seeing Ken's mom and dad. I put my foot down and vowed to be better at visiting them. No one should loose sleep because their kids are dropping by. And I know my mother in-law worries about just about any and everything a person could worry about, but I'd like to not be the cause of it and if possible be a pleasant distraction.
So the thing that got me started on all of this was actually the Tsunami in Japan. Ken woke me up this morning to inform me about it and the fact that one of my sisters who lives in Hawaii was probably OK, but it was heading to the west coast and my eldest sister was evacuated. Well that certainly woke me up! It puts life into a much different perspective. We who have cancer are aware that this disease can be fatal. Yet with just the click of the television remote you find that thousands of people have just died. It becomes clearer to me that death is all around us. All any of us can do is choose to live while there is breath in our bodies. To me it just makes life that much more mysterious and wonderful. What a blessing uncertainty is. It keeps us guessing and for me there is joy in that.
I remember staying up watching the news until Katrina had made landfall. At the last minute the Hurricane veered to the east. Content that New Orleans would be OK I went to bed, got up the next day and went to work. It wasn't until I was at work that I was confronted with the horror of the levees breaking and flooding my spiritual home. I was devastated. I was also grateful that I had not been there. (we were actually just a couple of months from returning to start house hunting in NOLA). But I have watched New Orleans begin to heal itself in a most wondrous way. I have seen other cities and countries, including our own, heal themselves from devastation. And I am watching myself heal from cancer. The one thing I know is that the human spirit can never be shattered by devastation. It seems to be our Divine destiny to rise up in the face of any and all adversity and choose life. For this reason alone, I believe that I will heal myself of this disease. I believe that anyone is capable of healing themselves of anything. I know some won't make it, but that only makes me stronger in my resolve to live. It becomes our job to carry on the legacy of our friends, family and anyone who's lives have touched us.
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