I was diagnosed with cancer and my life
was wiped away. When I think back to that time I really had no sense
of the scope of what was happening. It was too big to even process.
That feeling of being in shock, when something bad or really intense
happens, that lasted for like three months. So but I was laying in a
hospital bed during the first weeks after I was diagnosed, and people
would come to visit, and I would talk with my family, and I had all
of these ideas running through my head about what had changed for me,
already. It was that fast. My old life was wiped away, and that
empty space was being filled in, like a rush of water from a flood.
New ideas were flying around. And I kept having certain types of
feelings, especially about all of the people that were coming to see
me and who were contacting me in different ways.
It has taken a long time for some of
those things to congeal. I'm sure that process will continue, I'm
definitely not done with this whole story yet. But some of those
ideas have started to become more concrete for me. The other night I
was thinking about life, and the different experiences people have.
How we all have all of these different experiences, and we think that
those things make us different from each other. And in many ways
they do. But at the end of the day we're all just people living
life. So in that way we're all the same. You live your life, and
you do all these things and you develop this way of seeing and
thinking about yourself and your life and that becomes your reality.
And I do the same thing, and my reality is different from yours. But
really we're exactly the same, both just living life and having our
own experiences. And in that sense it doesn't matter what they are.
It doesn't matter who we are. I say it doesn't matter, but what I
really mean is that it doesn't matter in particular what the experiences are.
It matters that they are and
that we are. It
matters that we experience something, and feel something, and create
some kind of reality for ourselves. But that's sort of inevitable,
just as a result of being a person and being alive.
So I
was thinking, well what really does matter then, like in particular?
What content of our lives really is important, if we all have
different lives and experiences and realities that are all very
meaningful and important but the contents of which aren't
particularly important? And I thought about how it would feel to be
about to die. Funnily enough, I've had that experience. Not
something to envy, mind you. So that's why I'm sharing, so hopefully
you don't have to have that experience, but you can still get
something from it anyway. And here's what I thought.
When you're old and you're going to die
all you're going to think is, “Did I give enough love?”.
You're going to think about all the
relationships you had in your life, about all of the people you knew
and you're going to think, “Did I express to that person just how
much love I feel for them? How much love I have in my heart for them?
Do they know?”. And you might think that the answer may be yes,
but you will feel an ache. And that ache is your heart yearning to
express more love to the people that you care about. To everyone.
The reason for that ache is that we live to express love. It is the
most fulfilling thing we do. And we really can't express enough of
it. We can try, and we can be successful in that endeavor, but I
think we will all probably still feel like we could have expressed
more.
That is the particular feeling that I
had more than any other when I was laying in a hospital bed with
tubes in my chest. I felt absolutely filled up with the love that I
felt for all of the people that I know. And the ache would grow
really intense when I thought about the fact that I might die, that I
had almost died, and that so much of that love would be, or could be
unexpressed. I wanted nothing more than to let all those people
know, to let all of you know, how much I love you.
I'm sure others have had vastly different experiences than I did. Not just with having cancer, but with being close to death. I mean, that was one of my earlier points, that we all have all of these disparate experiences. But I do have the sense that this feeling I'm talking about is something that nearly everyone can relate to. It's closer to universal than most experiences. An interesting contrast can be found in considering the ways that we're different versus the ways that we're the same. What do you look for when you see other people? The similarities or the differences? Or both. One more thing I'll leave you with, is that I feel so refreshed that now when I think about these types of things I feel like I can really appreciate the fact that I don't know the answers. I really really wanted to know the answers before. Not that I don't want to know now, more that I'm not so afraid of not knowing, or I'm not so hung up on knowing, or something like that. It's a kind of freedom that I'm really appreciating.
A quick update on my treatment:
All is going well with my maintenance chemo. I'm taking some pills each week, and once a month I get an IV shot. I notice the side effects from the drugs, but they are very very manageable. I don't have days on which I can't function. So I'm quite happy about that. There are some potentially more involved, intense treatments that I may have to undergo down the road. But I met with my doctor recently and he let me know that we would evaluate those things as they came up, they are not inevitabilities. Which is good to know. I get the sense that he is willing to adapt to how I'm responding, to how my body is doing, and to cater the treatment to that, rather than simply plowing ahead with a regimen because it's the thing to do. The peace of mind that I'm feeling as a result is a big deal for me. It's amazing how much anxiety having cancer and undergoing treatment for cancer can cause a person. But again, all is well, and I'm going rock climbing, and just enjoying myself, and it's wonderful.
