Returning to the ordinary life has been a bit of an adjustment for all of us. From the end of last May until the beginning of December we had moved from a normal family life into Cancerland, which I learned was both a real and an imagined place. The reality of cancer never leaves you. Not even when your cancer, like mine, is in remission.
But imagining what lies ahead in Cancerland is like what happens when you imagine your worst nightmare coming true. Our heads are filled with scary images drawn from an awful anti-aesthetic collage of people we’ve known who died, mediated images of bodies wasting away, and stories we’ve heard about the miseries and negative side effects of various treatment options. Since we entered Cancerland we have known people whose fears about chemotherapy, radiation, and/or surgery prevented them from agreeing to any treatment at all. Those people are all now dead. For one thing fear can’t do is protect you from harm. Nor will it somehow magically prevent this damned disease from continuing its deadly course through the body. Like fire, fear only gets stronger when it mingles with our breath.
If you’ve been following my blog you know that I have been lucky. My doctor chose the right treatment; the Four Winds Cancer Clinic provided a life-affirming and always patient-centered environment; my family and friends supported me throughout the process and continue to do so; and my negative side effects have been largely eliminated. I still suffer from neuropathy in my fingertips (which makes typing harder but not impossible) and in my lower legs and feet (which makes walking or standing an exercise in balance control and endurance), but I am assured that these sources of unpleasantness will dissipate over time. Luckiest of all is the fact of remission. Since early December when I received word of the confirming CT-scan and blood marker, I have been able to return to ordinary life. Return to normal. Well, a “new normal.”
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I drive myself to work. I do grocery shopping alone. I write my new book with less of a desperate urgency, although I have learned that every day is a blessing and there are no guarantees. Still, it is with a new sense of pleasure that I indulge in the unfilled minutes and leisurely hours, and there is no doubt that small stuff doesn’t bother me in the least.
The time I have left is no longer driven by a compulsion to “get there.” If anything, just living well is good enough for me. Strangely, this awareness hasn’t made me lazy. But it has made what I choose to do a matter of clear conscious choice rather than any self- or other-imposed need to be “productive.” I am productive enough. I have had a lifetime of being more than productive enough.
Now is the time for me and mine, for friends and family, and for wonder. If that sounds overly self-indulgent or maybe just selfish, I’m sorry. But attending a memorial service for a friend last week who didn’t make it out of Cancerland from treatment reminded me of the simple, yet profound finality of death. There is no return to normal from our own inevitable ending. The time we have is always precious.
The good news for her, for Rebekah, and for all of us who hold some belief in an afterlife narrative, is that we enter a new life out of death, and that what ends is not the sum total of our being but only our temporary Earthling status. Our soul, our energy, moves on.
But being on the blue planet in our fleshy bodies on a “temporary” soul visa is what defines our Earthly existence, even though we may try our best to deny it or to ignore it. The other part is what we do while we are here. How we connect ourselves to others and our stories to the larger purpose of life out here among the stars.
Which brings me back to the glorious ordinary of everyday life. Revel in it. Be thankful for it. Show your gratitude in kindness to others. What we are here for, after all, is to do what we can to improve the lives, the spirit, and, if possible, the understandings of our fellow Earthlings, this human collectivity of star travelers.
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