Peace in the Midst

I have been doing some thinking about how swiftly life has changed recently. It seems like only yesterday that we were counting down the days until our beach vacation. Now vacation seems like it was a million years ago, and even the super-busy days of May and June seem simpler than the current ones. Now our already-crazy life has taken a turn for the even-more-complicated. Not only do I have to maneuver day-to-day life with cancer, messy house, kids who are exactly 82 ½ hours away from catching the school bus for their first full day (don’t even ask me how I know that), finances, van in the repair shop, and all the trappings of regular life – I also have to manage to fit a cross-country trip into our schedule every few weeks. I am NOT complaining because I KNOW how lucky I am to have a new treatment option. I guess I’m just feeling overwhelmed and a little bit frightened. How thin can I spread my energies and still keep functioning? Travel is VERY challenging for me. Remember the great Philadelphia caper, when I single-handedly derailed the trolley tour? And then there were the beach house meltdowns, and the tears in the Cleveland airport because my back was hurting and I couldn’t roll myself another inch but the gate was still nowhere in sight …

I know what you are thinking, and you are right. I should concentrate on ONE day at a time, instead of obsessing about things that haven’t happened yet. If I am given the blessed gift of time, then we will worry about each trip as it comes.

I have a confession: I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Not about the actual process of it, but just the whole concept of how we start out in this world as innocent babies, learn to walk and talk and read and write and work and play and love and hate and make our own way in the world and acquire houses and lands and cars and STUFF of all sorts – only to die, leaving only the lives we have touched as our legacy, and our beloved pile of stuff to be sorted and divided amongst the living. And all of our knowledge, our experience, our gifts, and our flaws go down into the ground with us and are gone forever. It seems so hollow, somehow, so … worthless, in a way. What does it matter if we are rich or poor? Pretty or ugly? Smart or not-so-smart? Death is the great equalizer -- except, of course, for the fact that not all lives are equal in length.

There is so much sorrow fraught up in the business of living. And yet, I long to be here for it. Sometimes I feel that we are never so much alive as we are in midst of great struggle; our adrenaline is pumping and our senses are heightened and our hearts are deepened and it is only after the storm has passed that we can truly appreciate the smallest, tiniest blessings of life -- like breathing in the sweet air after the rain has passed through and cooled the searing heat enough for us to sit outside with a glass of tea and the nightly newspaper. And even though my body is tired and broken-down from the length and depth and width of my long battle, I don’t want to have a bitter soul. I want to celebrate those moments when I am not sick and not hurting, and I want to hide them in my heart to cling to when I am fighting. After all, life is made up of moments, and that’s the way I need to live it – not worrying about the future (which may or may not come), but savoring those little snatches of time when all is beautiful and peaceful and as calm as a quiet summer evening after a storm.

:-) Sharon