jennethink

WHERE THOU ART - THAT - IS HOME. -EMILY DICKINSON

My mom and dad did a fair amount of socializing when I was growing up.  Groups of people would sometimes come to the house and we would “entertain”.  We had friends we saw every other weekend during bowling league season.  And we had close friends that would have us over for dinner.  I loved family dinners.  I loved when we all get bundled up and head over to someone’s home to eat and play.  It was a treat.  New kids to play with.  New toys.  My sister and I would play effortlessly with their kids.  We’d all eat together and then the kids would get dismissed to the tv room.  The adults would continue to talk and laugh and sometimes play cards.  The kids would eventually fall asleep in a of pile blankets like a litter of warm puppies. 

Those memories are clear.

But I also have vague snippets of memories.  Like mis-spliced reels of tape in my head the images come in and out jumping sometimes from something clear and vivid to a new scene that is foggy and unfamiliar.  Only a frame or two at a time I can remember - being hauled up gently by my arms as my head lolled backwards.  I can remember my mother pushing my noodley arms through big puffy sleeves of my jacket.  I can remember being hoisted up into my father’s arms and carried to the car.  Half awake.  Half asleep.  We’d drive home and I could hear my parents talking.  Uninterested in what they said only lullibied by their familiar voices I’d drift in and out.  Occasionally waking with the misplaced confusion that comes from unfamiliar surroundings.  Realizing where I am.  Where I was.  And falling back into sleep with the full awareness we’d be home soon.

The cold night would niggle me awake. Like a monkey I’d climb up into my dad’s arms again.  Only half holding on.  Arms snaked around his neck.  Feet dangling and bouncing as he walked up the front step to the house.

I was never forced to brush my teeth or say prayers or any other normal nightly ritual on nights like this.  Together my father and mother would undress me as they giggled and talked about the evening.  Never addressing me.  Just talking comfortably with each other.  As adults. So rare to see your parents act like adults who love each other and not parents who occasionally interact.  Rare enough that I didn’t recognize it for what it was until years later. 

Then strong Daddy arms would ease me back into my pillow.  The covers would come up.  My worn, faded, yellow blanket would magically form around my head being tucked around me in just the right way so I could turn my face and nuzzle my cheek against the soft puddle of cotton. A kiss on the forehead.  And I was home.  Safe. 

One of the hardest things for me about chemo was the pulling away that would occur.  I would lose myself each treatment.  It was the war between the person and the body.  Everything good and right about me would be challenged.  I was physically exhausted, mentally fatigued and emotionally as used up and gunky as a rotten dishrag left too long in a sink of dirty water.  Early in treatment, this feeling would last a few days.  Early in treatment, in the 13 days that spanned chemo sessions, I would recover nearly completely.  I would find myself again.  I would drive down the road with my windows open, radio blasting, enjoying the moment, the opportunity to feel good, grateful even for the process.  Later in treatment, however … well, let’s just say the effects of chemo are cumulative and by the 5th or 6th treatment there was little to no recovery and I went into each new session less than I was at the last session.  Stripped of my defenses.  Stripped of my boundaries I went in naked and alone.  I would ball up protectively around myself trying to keep me near, to keep some shell of who I really am only to have her torn from me again and again.  And again. When treatment ended I was left holding a person who felt, acted, thought and looked nothing like me.  Nothing like me at all.  Foreign. 

Still, I played the part anyway.  The part of the gratefully recovered cancer patient. I faked it.  I eased back into my life.  I did all the things I’ve done before.  Did them as best I could.  Playing the role.  Acting the part.  This is how she would act, I would think.  This is what she would do.  I nearly took to wearing a WWJD bracelet with the J standing not for Jesus.  No, Jesus I had. Jenne, however, was long gone.  What WOULD Jenne do? I would ask myself.  Jenne, I guess, would do this.  Jenne, I suppose would say that.  For the first time in my life, it has been an effort to be me.  So I have been waiting.  Hoping.  Looking for my return.  Thinking one day I would awaken and find me here.  With all kinds of stories of long delays and travel interruptions I would apologize for taking so long but stress that I’m back now and all is okay. 

But I’ve yet to show up.

And just when I thought I would have to turn loose of The Girl I Was completely and learn to live with This New Person -I’ve realized that this, like most things, will be a process.  I’m reminded that good timber does not grow with ease.  I’m nudged out of self-pity and shown again that my life is what I make of it.  That The Me I’m Meant to Be isn’t so far away after all.  And a few things recently have shown me that although I’m not there yet.  I’m on my way.  I’m drifting in and out. I’m listening to familiar voices. I’m remembering where I am.  Where I was.  And where I’m going.

I’m headed home.

GET READY, YOU WON'T KNOW WHAT HIT YA

I had a hard time when I went through chemo.   I may have mentioned it once or twice.  Chemo sucks – hugely.  I’m beyond amazed when I talk to someone who didn’t struggle with their chemo.  And by “beyond amazed” I mean I’m usually furious.  In a real hey-good-for-you sort of way.  Sometimes I talk to people who say things like, “Yeah chemo? It wasn’t bad at all.”  Or “I went horseback riding on my days off.”  Or  “Well, I would just take a long lunch to take my chemo and then head back to work.”  And I just want to go,  “Oh come ON! You can’t be serious!”  I mean how can something that completely wiped me out be like nothing at all to another person? It would be like watching someone get their fingernails pulled out giggle and then say, “Do it again do it again!” How is it possible that people can just shrug off chemo?  Am I just a wimp?  Did I accidentally get a double shot of chemo?  I accidentally ordered a double shot of whiskey one time and I can tell you it DOES make a difference.  Maybe that was the problem.  Was I just extra sensitive?  I know my nurses said that my chemo cocktail was exceptionally rough but is that really true or were they just saying it to make me feel better?

Sometimes I wonder if these chemo-superstars are pulling my leg.  Perhaps it’s the same phenomenon that I see in new mothers when they are all like, this baby thing is the best thing ever! I’ve many times wondered if they were faking it.  Especially when they say, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to them while mopping baby poo off their forehead and trying to find a spitsy rag to wipe the puke off my new cashmere sweater.  And it gets worse when every mom in the room nods and goes, “Oh yes!  The best thing! The very very best thing!”  It has always been in those moments when I want to go, Okay ladies, gig is up.  Because seriously?  I mean I know kids are awesome, you don’t have to convince me, but in that moment I mean really?  Aren’t you exhausted?  And really?  Aren’t you a little olfactorily damaged and really?  Don’t you need a drink?

But I don’t say a word because I know they wouldn’t admit it.  Because wouldn’t they look silly being the only mom to say, “Holy crap I wish I could send this screaming ball of flesh back where it came from.” 

Not literally.

So what else is there to say? Of COURSE you’re going to say it’s the best thing that’s every happened to you.  Of course you are.  And I could never really call a mom out because who knows?  Maybe it IS the best thing.  Maybe your body chemically changes when you engineer a child and things like poop on your forehead are actually appealing.  Maybe your memory is altered and you can’t remember all the other things that rank higher in life than changing a diaper.  Like lima beans.  And dental cleanings.  Since I’ve never given birth, I can’t with conviction call bullshit.

So I keep my mouth shut when someone says how great it is to have a new baby and I just soak up all the good things about a friend having a new baby – like the new baby smell and the fact that I can squeeze their fat new baby feet and say things like “ah ga ga ga ga!” And then give them back.  But it is much harder with chemo.  Much harder to believe someone else thinks it is okay.  Much.  Because I’ve been through chemo.  And it sucks.  So when someone else says it wasn’t so bad … I don’t know.

I just have a hard time with that.

There were times, going through treatment, when I thought it wasn’t worth it.  Many times in fact. I know how that sounds.  I know it seems unbelievable.  But it is true.  I shared a lot here. A lot about chemo and the difficulties. I didn’t share it all.  And if you’ve read every chemo post that should scare you.  It scares me.  Still.  Maybe the best evidence of how awful it was is how I feel about every having to go through treatment again.  Maybe the best evidence is how terrified The Hub is to ever have to face treatment himself.  Maybe the best is the memory of the moment when I was laying curled up and crying in bed last year when that darling husband of mine whispered, “Hold on … Thursday is coming … Thursdays are good days.”  and I said, “I don’t think I can.  It’s too far away.” 

And it was Wednesday.

My father once told me that after his first surgery – the one that removed his spleen – he woke up and thought, “Well, that’s it.  I’ll never bend over again.”  And my mother told me after her first episiotomy she thought she’d never run again and I know what they meant.  In those moments, those times of feeling the awful you just can’t see the light.  You just can’t.

No matter what someone else says.

So you hold on.  You look for little things that will keep you going.  You can’t believe life will ever be normal or good again so you just hope it won’t suck.  It’s too much to believe you’ll ever really feel good.  That you’ll laugh with abandon, that you’ll run up and down stairs, that you’ll make dinner for company, that you’ll clean the tub just because you like the way it looks when it is shiny.  So you simply hold on.  What choice do you have?

Then one day you wake up and it’s done.  You got through it.  I got through it.  Unexplainable. 

People still ask me what they can say to loved ones or to themselves to keep them going when their chemo experience is similar to mine.  They email me and ask me for advice.  They wonder if I can remember anything that helped.  Truth is, I can’t.  I wish I knew the magic combination of words or prayers that would inspire or give someone the something they need to look forward to.  How can I tell others what it is?  I couldn’t even tell myself.

But … last week The Kid got her grades.  She was really proud of them.  I don’t need to tell you how much joy this kid already brings to me.  But last night, when I was downloading the pictures from her and her father’s weekend in New Jersey I came across this video.  And as I sat and watched, all I could think of was, if I could just go back in time and show this clip to “Chemo Jenne” I know it would be THE thing.  The thing that I would look at and say….it will all be worth it.

With that, I give you Nena Fromm with the Report Card Song.  Written, produced, directed, art directed and starring The Kid.  Lead guitar by The Hub.

WHEN A FATHER DIES

I was 13.

I was 13 the first time I realized the impact of a father’s death.  It was the first time I grasped just how big the stone is, just how small the pond is and just how enormous the ripples are that pulse out from the point of that impact.

When I was called to the office of my Jr. High School I was not concerned.  I was a good student.  I was liked by the office staff.  Perhaps I’d won a special award or was needed to show a new kid around school.  Things like that happened.  When I saw my sister was already in the glass walled school office, I was not concerned.  We were from a small town.  Jr. High and High School shared the same building.  I often saw my sister during the day.  Perhaps she too had won an award.  Perhaps she was needed somewhere for something.  When I realized my sister was there waiting FOR ME a creepiness started at my toes.  When I saw she wasn’t smiling … when I saw no one in the office was smiling, the creepy grew.

“Grandpa died.”

Oh.  Okay.  This was not a shock.  We’d been warned, properly prepared.  We’d had the run-down given at the dinner table a handful of nights before.  Grandpa not doing well…Not much longer left…Loves you both very much.  And then back to not eating my peas. 

“Dad’s coming to pick us up.  We’re going to Ohio.”

Now this was news.  I hate to say it now but I had a much more powerful reaction to the news that I’d be leaving school in the middle of the week than I did to the news that I’d never see my grandfather again.  I’d known other kids who left school in the middle of the week.  Kids who for one reason or another were set free for an unheard of 2 or 3 days in a row – without being sick.  I even had a friend who once went on a week long vacation right in the middle of the school year.  But I was never this kid.  I wasn’t the kid who missed school.  Ever.  Even my dentist appointments were scheduled on Saturdays.  So hearing that I’d be leaving on a Wednesday, traveling to Ohio and quite possibly not returning to school until the next … what?  Monday?  Maybe Tuesday?  Well, it rocked me.

I loved my Grandpa, of course I did.  And as my sister and I gathered up our things and waited on the curb outside the school building I thought about what it would be like to have no grandfather.  My mother’s father had died long before I was born so this grandpa – my dad’s dad – was my only grandpa.  And now, I was Grandpa-less.  I was without a Grandpa at all.  I already felt a little gypped in this area what with only having one grandpa to begin with and he lived 4 hours away.  And now … zilcho.  No Grandpa for you.  No funny faces at the holiday dinner table when he’d take out his teeth just far enough to make me scream.  No more checkers with Paw-Paw in the middle of the night when we visited while he sipped scotch – ice cubes clinking in the highball glass.  No more going to sleep with the sound of the CB radio crackling and hissing in the corner of the kitchen.  No more silver dollars flipped from his pocket into the palm of my outstretched hand.  No more.

It was a bummer.  And I sat there on that curb, with my chin on my knees, hugging my legs and thought about how sad this was for me.  And I waited for my father.

When he pulled into the parking lot, my sister and I stood.
There was a glare on the windshield as the Buick approached us.
He was driving slowly – as he should in a school parking lot.

As he came closer, the glare lifted.  And I saw my father through the glass.  His left hand was on top of the steering wheel.  His right elbow rested on the console.  He was shifted to the passenger’s side and his lips were pressed against his right fist.  His handkerchief was laying on the dashboard.

He was crying.

It was that moment.  That very moment when I realized – my grandfather is my father’s dad.  He’s crying because his dad died.  He’s crying.  His dad died.  His dad.

It was the first time I got it.  The first time I realized how huge death can be.  The first time I realized the man that used to carry me piggyback was once carried himself.  My father was strong and wise. But once upon a time, he was small and skinny and his father held him in his lap and played catch with him and taught him lessons and told him stories.  My dad was a grown-up.  And he’d grown up under the watchful eyes of his father.  My dad was one of the best parents I knew – and he’d once been parented by this man who was now dead – with whom he could no longer ask questions, or share joys or play cards or talk politics.  My dad was shaping my future.  His dad had formed his past.  He’d raised him, kept food on the table, a roof over his head, kept jokes in his ears and challenges in front of him.  He did some things wrong.  He did many things right.  Through the years they’d fought and argued and debated.  And they’d laughed and sung and cooked.  They were alike.  They were completely different.  And my father would now have to put him in the ground.  His father.  His dad. 

The next few days were a blur.  I don’t remember the drive over or the funeral or the drive back.  I don’t remember much from that block of time.  But I cannot shake the sight of my father though that windshield.  Just a broken boy who lost his dad.

Adulthood changes so many things. But men were always once boys.  And boys need their dads. 

And every child will share the long, lonely night.

BE KIND. EVERYONE YOU MEET IS FIGHTING A HARD BATTLE.

My friend Ann has a friend, Ben, who is battling cancer. It may seem a bit strange but I feel a kinship with this person whom I’ve never laid eyes on - mainly because his cancer is my cancer.  We were both going through chemo at the same time, experiencing different side effects but walking the same path.  I was a little big ahead of him – just a step or two - and even though we’ve never met, he and I, we are linked, connected, Hodgie-kins. Ben just finished chemo like 1/2 a second ago.  They just got word that the cancer is back.  Big and bad.  Doctors are shocked.  Friends are shocked.  His parents are shocked.

Ben is 16.

I’ve been praying non-stop since I heard.  Big prayers. Little ones too.  I speak words of supplication under my breath at stoplights and while out for a walk.  I knit my brows together – thankful to have brows again – when I’m doing the dishes and I whisper, Please God.  Please.  And that’s all I say.  Because I don’t know what else to say.  Because I’m without the right words. 

I’m without any words. 

You’d think I’d know what to say.  What to say to Ben, to Ann, to God.  You’d think, based on my experience, I’d would have been given the key to the giant lock on the book of All the Right Words or that I'd at least know the secret handshake and password that would allow me entrance into the place where All Things Make Sense.  But apparently I was absent that day at chemo.  Which enrages me.  What does a person have to do anyway?  What box do they need to check, what routine do they need to master, what passages do they need to memorize and recite back? Why this one and not that one?  Why now and not then?  Why me and not him?  Why him?

I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know.

What I know is I am fumbling, falling, hurting for my friend.  And my friend’s friend.  And I know this disease is horrible. 

And I know I hate it.

If you’re the praying type, will you pray for Ben, please?

ALTHOUGH THE WORLD IS FULL OF SUFFERING, IT IS FULL ALSO OF THE OVERCOMING OF IT. --HELEN KELLER

I have chronic back pain.  I’ve had it for years.  I have a condition call spondylolisthesis or as I like to call it spondoblah-blah-blah.  It is NOT scoliosis, although I have that too.  A vertebrae in my back is cracked – snapped through in 2 places – and the vertebrae has shifted.  It’s making a break for it, I guess.  This puts my spinal cord at sort of a bend.  And radiates pain out from that place of dysfunction to my hips, legs and low back. 

Sometimes, the pain is considerable.  Other times it is just gnawing and annoying.   

The worst characteristic of the pain is that it is constant.  Now I understand how a small stream can, over time, cut a path through a boulder.  Consistency.  I once had an un-empathetic doctor ask me “Does it hurt so bad you feel like you’re going to take a gun and shoot someone?”  I didn’t say “Other than you?”  as I wanted to.  Instead I said, “No.  It doesn’t hurt so bad I feel like I’m going to take a gun and shoot someone.  But,” I leaned across the paper covered table and lightly shoved him in the shoulder with three fingers, “does this hurt so bad you want to take a gun and shoot someone?”  I didn’t wait for an answer, “probably not.  But imagine I followed you around 24 hours a day, every day and did this,”  I shoved him again,  “just like this,”  shove, “24 hours a day, 7 days a week…” 

He rolled away – out of my reach.

Point made.


Through the years I’ve tried a number of different things to deal with the pain. 

I’ve tried physical therapy
I’ve tried visiting a chiropractor
I’ve tried medications.  I’ve tried a few too many medications.
I’ve tried inactivity, I tried activity
I’ve tried regular shots of some kind into my spine which were supposed to deaden the pain
I’ve tried a TENS unit which is suppose to confuse the nerve endings and redirect the pain signal
I’ve tried changing mattresses, sleeping with a pillow between my knees, using ice, using heat, using wine

I’ve tried a lot of things. 

You know what worked best?  Cancer.

During treatment I had a couple of friends who know about my back problems ask me how it was going.  “How’s your back doing?”  My reply?  “Uh.  It hurts I guess.”

Because it did, I guess.  My back still hurt.  But somehow the rest of what I was dealing with took the focus off of my back.  That makes sense.  When you’re huddled over a commode, you don’t really think about if your back is burning.  When your struggling for the next breath, you don’t wonder if laying this way or that way will make a difference.  When you’re fighting for your life, a little bit of never-ending gnawing pain goes almost unnoticed. 

Which is cool.  I think it is cool that pain in one place can be helpful to pain in another place.  And surprising. Athough, it shouldn’t be.  My father tried to convince me of this theory every time I complained of an ache or pain of some sort.  Always the problem solver,  my father would offer to stomp on my toe so I would forget about the other pain.  “Want me to stomp on your foot so you’ll forget about the paper cut on your finger?” he’d say.  I always declined.  And usually ran from the room.  But now I see maybe it’s not such a bad strategy after all.  Maybe not for me with my paper cut, but if the one pain is so intense, so awful, so bone crushing, maybe it is good to have pain somewhere else. 

Maybe pain in one part of the body eases pain in another part of the same body.

Relatives of one of my dearest friends are in the midst of a battle.  On Feb 28 they found out their darling 2 year old daughter has stage 4 cancer.  An awful cancer.  A horrible, awful, cancer.  They thought she had a tummy ache.  She has cancer.  She’s riddled with it.  Treatment started the same day as diagnosis.  There is no time to waste.  I read their updates daily.  I read weary words from her broken parents who are clinging desperately to hope as they cling tenderly to their daughter.  My spirit is nearly crushed.  I can hardly bear the weight of it all.  When I read the updates I find the air in the room getting heavy.  My skin crawls.  I read about the details of her treatment and vomit rises in my throat.  I have to fight through each word.  I have to make my eyes move across the screen.  It is almost too much. 

I cry.  Each time I read about beautiful Anna I cry.  Often I put my head down on my desk and try to take deep breaths.  If my dog is near I grab her and pull her head into my lap and bend to touch my forehead to her nose.  For comfort.  It is so heavy.

My friend wondered if I should be reading the updates.  Actually considered not telling me about the whole thing, “I thought maybe it was too soon, too raw for you to know this.”  It is too soon.  It is too raw.  But I WANT to know it.  I HAVE to.  And I will continue to read.  Every day.  Every word.  Because I have hope. Hope in her healing.  Hope in her recovery.  And hope that the hundreds of tears I shed will somehow ease just one of theirs.  I know we are all part of the same family – we are all connected, and maybe the pain I feel over here in Kansas City will some how ease the pain they feel, in that hospital room, stroking their baby’s sweaty head and gathering golden hair as it falls out in clumps. 

We are one body.  And I will shoulder up next to them and share this burden any way I know how.

Be well, dear Anna.
Stay close, dear Lord.

LATE NIGHT THOUGHTS

Let’s be clear about something right the heck now.

Although it may seem like a lot has happened to me, although I may wonder at times if my name got accidentally pulled out of the cosmic hat one too many times, although I may sometimes think my dance card is full enough thank you very much –

I am not
Nor do I ever think I will be
Upset about the things that have happened to me.

I don’t like them
I complain when I hurt
I wonder if there is some way I can “do it better”

But there is not ONE SINGLE SOLITARY CELL IN MY BODY that thinks any of the following things:

“this is not fair”
“why me?”
“what did I ever do to deserve all of this?”

when it comes to my health and other difficult circumstances in my life.

In fact.  The only time I ask those questions is when I look around at my life and I see the amazing, wonderful, unbelievable things I’ve been given.  My family.  My husband.  My kid.  My friends.  My brain.  My business.  Chick-fil-a.  the list goes on and on.  It is when I look at those things that I stop and say,

“this is not fair”
“Why me?”
“What did I ever, ever, ever do to deserve ALL of THIS??”

You know that old saying that if you put all your troubles into a bundle and tossed them a pile with everyone else’s and then were told to pick out a bundle of troubles, everyone would pick their own back up.  You know that saying?  Well, I wouldn’t even put mine in the pile to begin with.  I’m okay with what I have going on.  Still.

So. I know I get grumpy sometimes.  And sometimes I chuckle at the irony of it all.  But all in all – this is a good life I’m having.  An amazing life.

I thought we should get that straight.
I think I just may be talking to myself.

BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH, HE KINDLY STOPPED FOR ME - EMILY DICKINSON

Sometimes it seems like too much.

I got word today that a friend’s wife passed away in the wee hours yesterday morning.  I didn’t know her.  Not at all.  I hardly know him.  Just a friend, someone I’ve worked with a couple of times, someone I know.  But I can’t shake it. And I hate cancer.  I know we all die.  We all will die.  That’s the price of entry.  That’s the way it goes.  But I don’t have to like it.  I hate the cancer that took my father.  I hate the cancer that takes my friends’ loved ones and I hate the cancer that put my life on its beam ends for the past 7 months.

My mother’s cousin has ovarian cancer.  She writes to me every so often and talks about cooking and trying to get out of bed and the color of the wallpaper in her room.  She’s not doing well.

I never expected life to be fair.  I don’t even know what that means.  I don’t know what a fair life would look like.  Pretty boring I bet.

I talked with a friend today.  I mentioned I’ll take my last treatment in a week.  He wiped his hand across his brow.  “Whew,” he said and smiled.  He didn’t say “Thank God THAT’S over!” but he might as well have.  And I wanted to shout “It will NEVER be over!”  but I didn’t.  I knew he wouldn’t understand what I meant.

I don’t really understand what I meant.

Maybe I’m just more sensitive now than I used to be.  Maybe this is why victims of violent crimes get recused from jury duty at a murder trial.  Your perspective changes when you’ve touched something, lived with it, sat in the dark and stared in its cold yellow eyes and smelled its rank breath.  You lose objectivity.  You use words like “hate” and “despise” and “never”.  You’re different.

Somewhere in this city, a friend is waiting to put his beloved wife in the ground.

It’s too much sometimes.  Too much.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

Years ago when I was cranky or ill-behaved or just downright nasty, my mother would send me to my room to count my blessings.  This was pretty routine.  Sometimes she would give vague instructions – “go to your room and count your blessings” and I knew I didn’t really have to count anything, just shut up and not come out for an hour or so.  Other times the instructions were much more specific “go to your room and get out a piece of paper and write on that paper at least 10 things you are grateful for and do not even think about thinking about coming back out here with that attitude and without that list!” Add a “young lady” and I knew I had my work cut out for me.

I resented the whole process.  It was never easy.  Write a list of things I’m grateful for??? Are you kidding me??  What did I have to be grateful for? Maybe the fact that my mother and father didn’t birth ANOTHER sibling other than my evil sister who wouldn’t let me play with her record player?  Maybe I could be grateful that my mother only made cube steak once a week instead of twice?  It was all absurd.  I knew a tortured individual when I was one.  But arguing wouldn’t make it go away and (I knew from experience) would only increase the required size of the list so I’d stomp off to my room, slam the door and throw myself dramatically on my bed to sulk.  After 12 seconds, once sulking got old, I would dig out the paper and begin my list.

1.  I’m alive

I always started with that.  Mostly because it was the easiest and only thing I could think of in my oppressed state.  I often considered breaking out “I’m alive” into multiple points like 1) I’m breathing 2) My heart is beating 3) My brain is functioning, etc.  but even then I was smart enough to know if I had handed THAT list to my mother item number 3 would come under serious questioning. 

Item 2 usually had something to do with my pets.  Items 3 and 4 were often about friends or the sky or nature … the key here was to write ANYTHING other than “my family” in the top 5.  Vindictive, wasn’t i?

Eventually, however, they would make the list.  Of course they would. Along with other things as well.  Eventually my stubbornness would give a little and I would admit I had many many things to be grateful for.  Eventually I would realize what a super life I had.  I was loved, cared for, laughed with (and at).  I was fed and clothed and schooled.  I had friends and pets and toys and activities to do on the weekend.  I was one lucky kid.  So I would create the list and show my face – sans attitude – to my mother again. The list always worked.  The list changed my attitude.  The list was a good thing. 

Moms.  They pretty much know what they are doing most of the time.

I realize now what an important skill it is to be able to count your blessings.  And it is a skill, I believe, like drawing or singing or parallel parking … you may be born with a natural ability toward it but you can improve it.  It just takes practice.  And, like any other skill, the more you do it, the easier it is.

I’ve been given some interesting circumstances lately.  No one would argue that I’ve had some tough times over the past 6 months.  It has hit me in every area of my life – emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, spiritually – all of them.  One of the most interesting things about it is the intermittency of it.  One week I feel like road kill, the next I feel fine, the next I’m back in hell and the next … hey howdy guess who’s queen of the mountain?  It’s crazy and it offers a unique perspective.  Because I cycle so quickly from feeling good to feeling bad I’m keenly aware of what I have when I have it.  When I feel good, I am amazed just how good I feel.  And yet, the feeling bad is still within reach.  I don’t know how to explain it.  It’s sort of like when you are freezing cold and you jump in a warm shower and the water feels so good and warm but you still feel the cold.  You know what I mean?  The water is hot on your skin. And the warmth is seeping into you even though you are still, in many ways, very cold. The water never feels better – almost too good – than at that moment.   You are completely aware of the water.  The strange thing is, you take a shower EVERY DAY and you never notice that same warmth.  It’s the same water, the same temperature but the cold somehow affects the warmth.  It just feels so good.

Sort of like that.

More than once during this experience, when I start to feel alive again in my off weeks, I’ve turned to someone and said “I can’t believe you people feel like this all the time!”  and I can’t.  I cannot wrap my mind around how good we have it most of time.  I cannot grasp the beauty of breathing and the sheer warmth of being alive.  To be able to think clearly and breathe without pain and eat a scrambled egg that actually tastes like an egg and not like a plate of pennies.  To walk out of my house and be able to take the steps two at a time and move quickly without my bones feeling like they will bust.  To read a story and get it, follow it, enjoy it.  To have a conversation and hear the rise and fall of a friend’s voice and the throaty laughter and return that laughter.  It’s too much.  It’s too amazing.  And the most amazing thing is this – that feeling, that wonder, that gratitude slips away so quickly.  After a day or two of feeling good, I’m right back to taking feeling good for granted.  Just like that, it is gone.  I’m back to the daily shower and happily trudging through life.

I want to find a way to keep it.  I want to hold on to that glee. 

Is this perhaps the role pain plays in our lives?  A black backdrop against which colors shine so brightly? 

And if so, shouldn’t we be grateful then for pain?  Grateful for hardship?  Grateful for sisters who refuse to share and families that don't understand?  What kind of blessings list would that be?  One that includes pain and death and cancer and heartache.  And cube steak. Is this what it takes for us, for me, to see it?  To really see it?  Is this what it takes to know you are blessed beyond measure?

My father’s death when I was 15
My painful marriage in which I thought I would lose myself
My chronic back pain that gnaws at me late at night
Failed relationships
Multiple miscarriages
A botched adoption
Cancer

All blessings in of themselves. All experiences not be endured but to be embraced.  Not additions to your minus column of life but additions to the plus column.  To be grateful, not for just what the pain shows us, but for the pain itself.

Isn’t that something?

THE VALLEY

Here’s the thing about the valley, your perspective changes.  On the mountain top, where I’ve been so often, so many many, many more times than I deserve, I can see so far!  I can see so much!  I can see beauty and snow-caps and trees and little charming towns and sunsets and mist and mornings and green and growth and every bit of wonder imaginable.  That’s what the mountain top gives us – a view.  A view of so, so much.  I love the mountain top – who wouldn’t?  The valley, however, well, there is not much to see in the valley.  Walls on either side.  Steep inclines.  Darkness.  That’s what a valley is really, a darkness, a hole, a grave with both ends knocked out.  It’s not easy to walk the valley.  It’s hard to take the next step and the next and the one after.  It is so deep and dark. 

Today I realized what a blessing that darkness is.  It is God’s great generosity and wisdom that darkens the valley, that limits our perception, that restricts our view.  For in that shallow sight, there are few distractions.  There is nothing to see, nothing to draw attention, nothing to disrupt from the truth – the simple, pure, awesome truth that

I

am

still

here.

Breathe in. Breathe out. I am still here. 

CHEMO TALLY - 6 DOWN, 6 TO GO

And just like that, it is Friday.  It is so hard to update here when I’m feeling cruddy.  It’s hard to think, let alone write.  I’m amazed at how the chemo (last taken on Wednesday) affects my ability to focus.  I can’t – nor do I have any desire to – engage…. in anything.  Conversations are beyond laborious, television is painful, reading is an impossibility unless it is a collection of far side cartoons or a book I’ve read a dozen time prior. 

A client of mine sent me a survey he composed.  I was instructed to choose how I felt.  Here were some of my options:

I feel like gum on the bottom of my shoe.
I feel like I just smoked a pail full of garbage.
I feel like a fish that has been out of water for 11 days.
I feel like Oprah's sofa.
I feel like I just spent a solid week listening to a filibuster by Madeline Albright, James Carville and Hillary.

He’s close but what he forgot was an “all of the above” option.

However, from experience I know as badly as I feel today is only that – it is only as badly as I feel today, nothing else.  It is not an indicator of how I will feel tomorrow.  It is not a gauge of how I felt last week or a marker indicating how well I’m doing overall.  It is only how I feel.  And how I feel can change – will indeed change.  And I will be better. 

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.  -Albert Camus

Here’s to the invincible summer.