plowing through life

“This is just for a short time.  It’s not forever.  You’ll get through this.”

These are words that I tell myself often, but today I heard myself saying them to a friend.  A friend who begins her first chemo treatment tomorrow.  The words felt empty.  I’m a complete fraud.  As if I have the first idea what she’s going through and how she feels.  “Just a short time.”  Sounds logical, but when that time involves suffering, suffering which is inevitable, it can feel like forever.

She’s so brave, my friend.  Though she wouldn’t admit it.  Her strength comes in her ability to face and confront reality.  It can be easy to deny the truth.   To deny her illness and the battle she’s facing.  Even to allow herself to go to some of the most dark places our minds can take us.  But in moderation, she deals.  In short spurts she tries to process this reality that seems to be so cruel and illogical.  And she does this with grace and acceptance.

“I need to live my life,” she said.  She doesn’t want this to prevent her from traveling or making plans or finding other ways to do the things she loves while she fights.  These words apply to us all.  Are we merely surviving, or really living our lives?  In the face of something that can take that life, it can be easier to see things more clearly.  But in the everyday doldrums, we tend to just try to “get through this.”

So perhaps my advice was not good at all.  Because every day is another chance for life, not just something to plow through; even if that day involves a fight for that life.

fighting for life

Cancer.

This is not a word that people want to hear.  One of my dear friends was diagnosed with it this week.  It was totally unexpected.  She went in to get an ache/pain checked out and received this shocking news.  The only thing I thought was that we needed to kick some ass!

It seems that there are few people who have not been affected by this disease.  However, everyone responds differently.  What has been your experience?  Who did it affect-you, family or friend?  What did you find was the most encouraging or helpful to battle it?

What I found myself saying to my friend over and over again is that she will get through this and that this disease does not define her.  She is not the cancer.  It is only briefly apart of her life.  I feel like it is so easy for me to say these things to her because I am not experiencing it first-hand.  It makes me wonder if I am saying the right things or being what she needs.

With this in view, my perspective on life continues to change.  How can we find a way to live in the present without planning or fearing the future?  Why spend so much time and energy on things which don’t last or you can’t take with you?  What is the truth and purpose in life?

Once my mind starts spinning in this direction, I have a trigger which shuts it down before I get too overwhelmed.  I go into survival mode.  But survival is not life.  So how can we contemplate all of these things when we feel like there’s never enough time?  How can we live life to the fullest and still be responsible?