I am exhausted. My body feels the need to sleep all of the time, but I keep pushing back. I do not want to miss a moment for sleep. Have you ever really stopped to think about how many moments you have missed because you have been too busy, too tired, or just because? Life likes to take hits at all of us. It is up to us to decide when we say enough is enough and start fighting back.
I am strong enough now to confess to all of you that at one point during my sickness and struggle, I considered taking my life. I am not looking for pity, quite the contrary. People who commit suicide do not do so for any type of gain....and I honestly do not think they stop to think about all the people left behind that will be hurting tremendously at their passing. I have three babies who, even though I am terminal, still need me right now. I can not hurt them anymore than they are already hurting. I refuse to make them suffer by taking my own life.
As usual, I am being brutally honest, as part of my commitment to maintaining this blog, to give voice to all those I know who feel as I do, and to depict the dark side of cancer and debunk the overly sweet pink-ribbon-like facade of positivity and fanciful hope rah-rah cheer-leading asinine nonsense spewed by cancer patients and others that I absolutely loathe. I believe, as I have always believed, that in honesty- a brutal, yet kind and thoughtful honesty- we ultimately find not vulnerability, shame and disgrace, but liberation, healing, and wholeness. I hope my family and friends do not take offense at that honesty. It has been a hell week!
I have traveled both near and far to find a doctor who was strong enough to take my cancer on headfirst. And now I finally found one. I am so terrified! It was verified that it is indeed Stage IV (fucking great!). I was also told that people with primary Stage IV lung cancer do not live longer than two years (that's just fucking lovely!). So, they have been checking my body from the top of my head down to my toes to see if my cancer had indeed started somewhere else. Listen, I know this may sound like a really crazy request from all of you, but if you could, just for me, could you please pray that the cancer is somewhere else? I NEED time with my babies.
You see, I do fear that in my absence, my children's memories of me will fade, and they will love me less and less over time. I just want to scream....ugh or unload or something. Usually, as expressive as I am in writing, I have the same compunction to verbally unload my heartaches to those closest to me in life, because I know that for me the process of verbalization is healing. But not now. Right now I just want to cry. Damn you tears!
Really, all I have left is my writing....my writing is the important conversations I needed to have with my therapist. To be completely honest, this blog, is a much needed release for me, its my meditation, my contemplation. It doesn't matter if nobody even reads them....because these blogs are mine and they are all I have to give to my children.
The cancer part of my life has dominated as of late and I hate that! I live, eat, drink, and breathe cancer. I cannot escape it! I have sunk into the darkness of a new abyss, one characterized by the anger, bitterness, hate, and paralyzing loneliness that is eating me whole.
Perhaps one of the most frequent questions I get pertaining to my cancerous condition after "How are you?" is "How are the children doing?" As I have written before, Kevin and I do not subscribe to the belief that our children are fragile flowers and they will simply wilt under the weight of my incurable and likely terminal disease. I have always believed in honesty and with honesty comes hardship, but when confronted with love and support, it can only engender strength and resilience. And so my children are very aware that I am sick, and that this disease will likely be the cause of mommy's death. They do have an understanding of what "death" means....they are no longer little bitty kids :(. Damion would be the only one who could truly grasp what my death would mean to all of them emotionally. And even then, I am not sure he has even the slightest idea on how he would cope....because only that understanding can come when they experience first-hand the grief of losing their mother.
And yet, despite their knowledge of my illness, they are amazingly well-adjusted children who are full of joy and love and well-behaved too.
As their mother, I see in so many moments of how they are processing the unique reality of their mother being sick all of the time. Such moments are truly fascinating and fill me with such pride as I watch them cope with forthrightness, courage, and strength.
Tristan is such a Godly child....he always displays such faith in God. He continues to display an ageless soul that astounds me time and time again. In the moments when I feel God, I feel the power of this child of mine, and I am convinced that he was brought to me by an angel to help me deal with my disease. Or perhaps more accurately, it is when I witness this child's wisdom, his singular understanding of me, his magic, that I believe in God,that indeed God speaks to me through him.
When Katie gives me hugs with her long limbs, I feel her love. I feel her need for me to bolster her being and her need for me to assure her that I love her no less than I love her brothers. I wish I could explain to her the incredible grace, beauty, intelligence, and kindness that I already see in her despite her tender age of fourteen, and I marvel with pride that I created such a lovely, lovely being.
And then there's my oldest. Ah yes. He is my teddy bear. He may think he is a thug, but he is not fooling me or anyone else. I love his hugs. I can fit perfectly in his arms. He will always be my Pumpkin-Seed. He is always going to be my angel.
Indeed, I love all of my children without end and marvel constantly at how I could possibly be a mother to these three amazing and perfect children. I feel a love for them I never knew possible.
Every since I was diagnosed, I have learned that so much of life's hardships become more tolerable when you are able to build and lean on a network of loyalty, support, and love. Always gather around your people....the people who will always stand beside you and help you. But the thing is, you have to let them in; you have to let them see the heartache, pain, and vulnerability, and not cloak those things in a shameful darkness (like I did), and then you have to let those people who care actually help you.
Love you all,
Shanna xoxoxoxoxoxo
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