Dear Life?

I guess you could say today was a normal day for me. I have been more tired than usual and I am still waiting on Hospice to get all of my medical records, but nothing new has really happened. 

We did go to counseling yesterday. We were able to all go as a family this time (my oldest included, though he protested all the way there). I believe it is helping my youngest and my husband and I, but I do not think counseling is for Damion. He is very close-minded to the idea that anyone can change his ideals and thought processes. He is very angry at God and believes he is an Atheist/Agnostic....and as much as I would like to make him believe in God, I cannot force him to do so. He refuses to open up to anyone about my condition, even me. And, in some ways that terrifies me. I am afraid that when I do pass away, he will have held everything inside and then have no-one to turn to. But, I worry about things that have not happened way too much anyway, and of course I worry because I am still his mother no matter how old he gets.

After counseling, we celebrated my daughter's 15th (I still cannot believe she is 15) birthday at Los Mariachi's. She got to wear a pink sombrero and they sang happy birthday to her. She began to tear up. She is such a sweet girl. Then she put the sombrero on her daddy and we all had a great laugh about that. Her big birthday comes when we go to California to visit DisneyLand. She unfortunately has to wait. She does get to spend the day on Saturday with her Nana picking out her gift, so she is really excited about that.

My mother thinks that I am trying to hurry my death because I talk about it so much. This is not the case at all. I talk about my death because I do know it is coming soon, even though she doesn't want to believe it. I want others who are in my situation to be okay with the fact that dying doesn't have to be scary. And I want my loved ones to talk about it with me. I do realize though that every single one of us grieves differently.

I am afraid...but not for myself.

Little of my fears or anxiety lie in the past. I have few regrets, which is a blessing for me. I have lived my life fully so I need not waste energy contemplating foregone opportunities. I do wish I could change some medical choices that I made over the last year but I am learning to let go of these as well. Like most people I am afraid of what lies ahead: the months and, hopefully, years to come.

Perhaps the greatest of my fears is the uncertainty of what lies ahead for me. I feel as though the end of my life is drawing near. I cannot discern of this is depression talking, a realistic assessment of the situation, or a sixth sense. I don’t want to die. I have loved living and I want to be with my children and Kevin for years to come. But I have this overwhelming sense of foreboding that my time is running out, like I am reading a novel and the author has foreshadowed the ending, and I just don’t want to read any further. When I was a child I would read the end of a book before the beginning and, if I did not like the ending, I would elect not to read the book. That’s how I feel now. I don’t want this ending. Of course, I am acting like I know then ending when, in reality, I don’t know at all.

I am afraid of being a failure. All my life I have been able to achieve my goals. What I lacked in innate intelligence, I was able to compensate for with hard work and tenacity. And now I cannot seem to effect any change in my health. I feel responsible to fix this, to rectify the situation; yet, I seem powerless to do so. My lack of control and my irrational sense that this is some how my fault is fueling a depression that I also cannot contain.

I am afraid of mental suffering. Prior to the last several months I have had no experience with true depression. I have endured physical pain in many forms over the years and I can honestly say that it pales in comparison to emotional anguish. Depression is an insidious and powerful beast. There are days when I feel like someone has cast a gray film over everything. I search for joy wherever it lies. This week the house felt so sad. And then there are moments when all I can see is everything I stand to lose and I want to curl into a ball and die, just to get it over with. So it doesn’t have to hurt so much everyday.

I am afraid of leaving my children un-anchored in the world without a mother. I worry that they will never be able to heal the hole in their heart that my death leaves in its wake. I know they will never be the same after losing me and I want to trust that it is not an irrecoverable loss. But it is so hard to imagine how one ever recovers from losing a mother at such a tender age. That is why I am grasping at medical straws that I thought I’d leave untouched. I need to be able to look at my children and say, honestly, “I did everything I reasonably could to stay and now the most loving thing I can do is set you free from my suffering and yours.”

I am afraid of an undignified death. I do not want a hospital death, hooked up to tubes and machines. I want to go peacefully.

I didn’t realize how difficult this would be emotionally. I was never a big fan of amusement parks and I feel like I am on an interminable roller coaster ride. And I am holding on for dear life in more ways than one.

I had survived my disease thus far because of Kevin. The last year has been the most difficult year of my life. At a time in my life when my cup seems to have so many holes in it, people just keep coming forward and pouring and pouring to fill it back up. Kevin, the kids, and I have survived this year because of all of you. And I keep going because of you. 'Thank you' doesn't seem like enough but I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Our lives are filled with so many hard decisions these days. The emotional weight of it all is finally wearing us down, but we can keep putting one foot in front of the other because we are surrounded by such loving friends and family.

I don't know what I ever did to be worthy of such an outpouring of affection but it sustains me.

When I turn around I see him sitting on the bed, his hands full and flush against his face. It is the most distressed and distraught posture I have ever seen him take. I go to him, wanting so much to comfort him. On this journey towards the inevitable end, the husband is ten paces behind the wife.

I sit with my chest and stomach against his right arm. Extending my left arm I reach across his chest, broad for such a short man, and grasp a hold of his left side. I drape my right arm across his back and rest my right hand against his collarbone where his right hand reaches up and grabs hold of mine. We sit there, silently, for a few moments. In my mind I think it seems like some sort of couples yoga pose. What would it be called? “Dear Life?” “Desperation?”

As far as bargaining goes, I don’t think I spend a lot of time here. I just don’t picture God as some Monty Hall like persona in the heavenly version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” I just don’t think he’s up there waiting for me to express the exact “make or break” promise that is going to commute my sentence. So I don’t spend time promising God to become a better person if he would just do me this one little favor. I have mulled over my life at length and, quite honestly, I cannot imagine what I could have possibly done to deserve my situation. I will admit that I was a pretty shitty girlfriend in a couple relationships in my early twenties. I could also have been nicer to Kevin on many occasions, especially those involving the laundry. And, indeed, I cuss entirely too much. Even cumulatively these and my other failings don’t seem to merit my current circumstance. So, I don’t really see what I could bargain with anyway. I suppose I could offer to adopt some orphans or something similarly humanitarian and selfless, but I just don’t think that is what the Big Guy is expecting from me. (Though, God, if you happen to be reading my blog and there is something specific you had in mind, some sort of sign would be appreciated. I can always be reached by email).

So this leaves me with depression and acceptance and I just seem to ping-pong between the two constantly.

I don’t like the term depression; I prefer sadness because that is what it feels like, a profound melancholy. There is the saying about a journey of a 1,000 miles beginning with a single step, but no one says anything about going from step 345 to 346 when you are bone tired and your destination remains completely out of sight.

I’d like to get to and stay in the acceptance stage in a Monopoly-like way “Go directly to acceptance. Do not pass through denial, anger, bargaining and depression. Do not collect $200.” I want to be all Zen about this. I want to be some peaceful creature that walks through this process accepting each day as it comes: one step at a time, one bite of food at a time, one good night kiss at a time. I want to model peace for my children so that they will be able to find it themselves. I want everyone around me to feel like this is okay, that we will all be okay.

Grief doesn’t work that way. It is a process. I may want my children to be at peace with their unfortunate lot but I highly doubt that they are going to skip denial through depression no matter how Buddha-like I become. And anyone who knows me knows that I am no Buddha (and it’s not just because I don’t have a big belly either).

So I am trying to accept that there will be bad days – physically and mentally – for the months to come. I hope that the bad days are fewer in number than the good days so that I have the strength to weather them. And, perhaps, I need to revisit the definition of a “bad day” so that I can learn to reclassify a somewhat OK day as a good one.

I have so much work to do.

I have heard so many people say that Christ was unique in that he was human and divine. The only evidence they gave of his humanity was his fit of rage in the temple or his suffering on the cross. I always felt like they had missed something. Now I think I know what it is: Christ was not unique. I now feel certain that we are all human and divine in the same way that he was. I have witnessed God in my friends and family so much in the last several months, and I will never again doubt that divinity resides in each of us.

Love you all and truly mean it and God loves you too,

Shanna xoxo

Official prayer warrior page for my fight against lung cancer: facebook.com/hope4shanna

Official blog Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/shannabananahealthandfitness