6.3.2020
I refuse to revisit the old.
It's a closed door.
I'm not forgetting, but I'm not revisiting the painful.
We are solid.
We are honest.
We love each other.
We choose each other.
Everyday, I choose you.
You're part of my soul.
You're part of my fabric.
Your pain is my pain,
Your happiness is my happiness.
There can't be me without you because we are one.
Life is full of choices and beauty and pain;
we pick our partners, we pick our paths.
We don't control our events, but we participate in them,
molding them and deciding how much space they get in our story.
You're my story.
You're my undeniable.
You're my gut-love.
You're my chips are down, all the fluff is torn away, base.
You're mine and I'm yours.
There is nothing more basic and clean.
It's a closed door.
I'm not forgetting, but I'm not revisiting the painful.
We are solid.
We are honest.
We love each other.
We choose each other.
Everyday, I choose you.
You're part of my soul.
You're part of my fabric.
Your pain is my pain,
Your happiness is my happiness.
There can't be me without you because we are one.
Life is full of choices and beauty and pain;
we pick our partners, we pick our paths.
We don't control our events, but we participate in them,
molding them and deciding how much space they get in our story.
You're my story.
You're my undeniable.
You're my gut-love.
You're my chips are down, all the fluff is torn away, base.
You're mine and I'm yours.
There is nothing more basic and clean.
“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if
all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty
stranger.”
Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty
stranger.”
Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
the how
We lived as though you weren't sick. I know that we may have experienced a lot of judgement for that but I. Don't. Care. I think that's part of why we experienced the victories we did. We were not going to let the diagnosis define you/us or any part of our life.
I remember Aaron turning to me once when I offered to take out the trash for him and saying to me, "NO, because then IT wins. I am not going to let this thing take anything from me. This is my job and I'm going to do it." This may seem quite small, but it was January and it was cold. One of the medications Aaron got made him incredibly sensitive to cold. I wanted to help and he wanted to continue to be the husband he'd always been.
We lived as though you weren't sick. We went on trips, we cancelled appointments. We made plans, sold our home. We didn't send me running back to work. We planned family. We planned a lot.
We lived as though you weren't sick. We prayed, pressed in, cursed disease, and never, ever claimed it. The word wasn't spoken in the home unless we were cursing it. Even years later, I can't say it without a bit of hesitation because we were not giving it permission to take root in our lives.
We lived as though you weren't sick. You were never our patient; always our beloved.
I remember Aaron turning to me once when I offered to take out the trash for him and saying to me, "NO, because then IT wins. I am not going to let this thing take anything from me. This is my job and I'm going to do it." This may seem quite small, but it was January and it was cold. One of the medications Aaron got made him incredibly sensitive to cold. I wanted to help and he wanted to continue to be the husband he'd always been.
We lived as though you weren't sick. We went on trips, we cancelled appointments. We made plans, sold our home. We didn't send me running back to work. We planned family. We planned a lot.
We lived as though you weren't sick. We prayed, pressed in, cursed disease, and never, ever claimed it. The word wasn't spoken in the home unless we were cursing it. Even years later, I can't say it without a bit of hesitation because we were not giving it permission to take root in our lives.
We lived as though you weren't sick. You were never our patient; always our beloved.
“You’ll get over it…” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone
you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because "it” is
the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never
closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve
over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you
and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?”
Jeanette Winterson
Written on the Body
you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because "it” is
the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never
closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve
over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you
and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?”
Jeanette Winterson
Written on the Body
tips if you know someone dealing with loss or tragedy
Because I am a judgemental freak and witnessed some callousness during our battle, here are some guidelines for dealing with those in crisis.
- Don't, under any circumstances, vent about your "problems" to those in
crisis. Your "problems" aren't even on our radar. Now, if you do indeed have real problems, carry on. - Don't babble on and on about how great your life is. You think you're
distracting us, but you're really just reminding us that we have no idea what
"normal" is for other people. You're also making yourself look shallow. You
don't want that. - Don't offer to help and then complain about all the difficulties you're
running into as a result of helping. That doesn't help. - Be very careful offering advice on how to handle the situation. Be mindful
of the FACT that every decision is very personal and the view from inside is
different than the view from outside. Offers to help however you can are
somewhat comforting {when the honesty of that offer is evident}. - Don't make excuses. Some people might like them, I didn't and I can't help
but wonder if they irritated me so because my nerves were on overdrive and I could see
right through them. If that's true, then don't put others through the
unnecessary politeness of pretending to join the fantasy world you're calling
home. (Maybe my nerves are still on overdrive... I'm feeling a little ruthless.) - Send cards, texts, posts... Reaching out takes next to no time and you don't have to say much. A simple thinking of you will generally work. Quality friends were hard to find, but not hard to be and, if I examine life from Aaron's perspective, he wasn't able to truly interact with people much because he was tired, but his phone became a constant. It asked nothing of him and was ready to interact when he was.
- Mean what you say and say what you mean. It is my experience that those in crisis see right through charades. Be who you say you are. Be trustworthy. Be honest. Be available. The needs aren't difficult to fulfill. Just involve being a quality human.
- Put yourself in the other's shoes almost constantly. Regularly ask yourself what it must be like to be ____. Though you can't be sure you get it, it may just help you to remain understanding.
- Be Jesus to those in the storm. Study what Jesus did. Pray, treat people with compassion, remain in control. Remember who you are in Christ. Let Him use you.
“When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all
at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming,
and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and
drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the
day comes—when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the
feeling that she's gone, forever—there comes another day, and another
specifically missing part.”
John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meany
at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming,
and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and
drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the
day comes—when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the
feeling that she's gone, forever—there comes another day, and another
specifically missing part.”
John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meany
loss, upon loss, upon loss...
We didn't look at the problem much.
A personal decision and one that I think contributed immensely to our success.
Science says we beat the odds by several years.
How?
They can't profess to know.
Our regimine? Prayer? Distraction?
My answer: Yes.
I finally got up the nerve to ask his primary oncologist what the prognosis would've been if we had asked after his initial surgery. The answer? 6 months. Six months. And we got over three years. Three long years. Three stressful years. But three full years, where we weren't fearful all of the time. Three years where we spent a decent percentage of time laughing. Three years so our children do have Daddy-memories. I'm so so thankful that we didn't ask.
All this considered, we still lost a tremendous amount of our marriage. A ridiculous amount of normal. At least one child. A place to call home.
Yes, I think it's safe to say that I'm unhappy.
A personal decision and one that I think contributed immensely to our success.
Science says we beat the odds by several years.
How?
They can't profess to know.
Our regimine? Prayer? Distraction?
My answer: Yes.
I finally got up the nerve to ask his primary oncologist what the prognosis would've been if we had asked after his initial surgery. The answer? 6 months. Six months. And we got over three years. Three long years. Three stressful years. But three full years, where we weren't fearful all of the time. Three years where we spent a decent percentage of time laughing. Three years so our children do have Daddy-memories. I'm so so thankful that we didn't ask.
All this considered, we still lost a tremendous amount of our marriage. A ridiculous amount of normal. At least one child. A place to call home.
Yes, I think it's safe to say that I'm unhappy.
“How could you go about choosing something that would hold the half of your heart you had to bury?”
Jodi Picoult
Mercy
Jodi Picoult
Mercy