The Winds of Time

Hello! I am finally feeling just a little better, although I am very, very weak. When I visited my lung doctor yesterday, he said that my lungs are now functioning at 60% of their capacity – down from 84% five years ago. The actual lung tumors are not significantly worse, but I am also dealing with the side-effects of the spinal reconstruction (which limits my lungs’ ability to expand), the many chemos and surgeries, and the forced immobility due to the precarious situation of my left hip. I guess this explains why I wear out so quickly and have so much less energy. It’s funny: I noticed (and might have even blogged about it) that after my spinal surgery I never fully recovered the same “spunk”. I never considered that it had affected my lungs until he told us this yesterday.

I’ve noticed within myself a troubling trend of late. It’s a sinking feeling, a general darkening of my outlook and my mood. I feel exhausted and overwhelmed more often than not, and have to dig deep within myself to find the resolve I need to push forward. It feels like I am moving into another season of my life, one that is cold and harsh and cruel and hopeless. I just don’t want to go there. Winter knows things that summer never fathomed, and if I’m not careful it would be easy to become bitter. And I don’t want to be bitter, because winter has its own beauty, too. When else can you see the true glory of the mighty oak, stripped bare and bowing in the wind, but still standing strong? When else can we find the world we know blanketed in tiny white snowflakes, each one miniscule by itself but grand in their totality?

While sorting through papers with Autumn last week, I found this poem that I wrote in college:

And as November tumbles in again,
It brings the echoes of the other years
That time has washed away, the now-and-then
Fresh swell of sorrow, tidal wave of tears.
The reminiscent soul is swept by cold,
As icy winds refreeze the present part;
Harsh memories resurface, dark and bold,
Cast shadows on the walls that line the heart.
And all is cold. And all is deep and fierce.
And all of the forces of the naked soul
Build cries up into screams, but no one hears,
Reach out to grasp for strength but cannot hold.
And so my tired heart, stripped bare, left numb,
Shrinks in the darkness, waits for spring to come.

Of course, there is no “spring” for me as far as my health goes. And it should come as no surprise that I am inching toward the winter of my life. Lush, green summer ended, obviously, when the cancer was diagnosed eight years ago this month. The long autumn has been colorful and unpredictable – breathtakingly beautiful in some ways, and unimaginably horrible in others. I’ve fought long, and fought hard, and my body has suffered a steep decline. That doesn’t mean that what’s left can’t still be very good.

Ordinarily, my good humor returns as my body finds new strength. Hopefully that will be the case now. And I will concentrate on the things that make me very happy, like a cold, dark evening with all of us gathered around a crackling fire in the fireplace, while the harsh wind that blows and the cold rain that falls just beyond our window only makes us feel warmer and safer and cozier inside our own home. I must make peace with the process of dying, yet at the same time find happiness in the blessed gift of living.

:-) Sharon