Wednesday, May 21, 2014

the battle within

I've said it before.....I do love the early morning times. it's time I usually have to myself, to ease into the day. and these days, each one seems to present new and different challenges. There are labs to be done, chemo to be had, docs to visit....and now, we've added attorneys to the mix. The whole "business" aspect of dying is most difficult. It is expecting a lot of one who has always worked hard and saved his whole life,  to decide how he wants to give it all away when he's not going to be here to enjoy it. "I could have"..."I was going to"...."We should have"...."I always though I would"..."I wish we had"....and then, boom, just like that....you can't. It suddenly becomes all about being fair to everyone else when life has kicked your behind and been everything but fair to you.
I'm at the point in this journey where i'm fighting with myself. I know from past experiences that this is normal. the guilt aspect.....why or how can I go and do what I want...have fun...when he can't?  How can I take even a tiny part of my life and separate it from this so that I have one little part of myself just for me? At what point do I begin the process of taking one step away at a time so as to keep my own life on track? I do not want to be consumed by it all, but the truth is when one in the family has cancer, the whole family has it....because it DOES consume you. There is the constant white noise that is the oxygen machine. There are the hours and hours he sleeps that one must be quiet so as not to disturb because the sleep is most important....but at some point you do go in and check....to see if....   There is the issue of food...we must eat, after all, but the smell of anything cooking makes him not want to eat. There are things I need to do...must do...in order to keep my little business at least semi-afloat, but even the tiny window in me that "allows" me the light and joy of working with my hands seems to want to close and say "No, you can't do anything joyous and free and fun in this time of dying"....while the fight in me wants to shout back "But I'm not the one dying!!".....so the battle rages. That's why my saving grace is in the "looking beyond, ahead...past it all" part....the part where I get to live...the part where I'm convinced that i'm NOT the one dying....the part where I don't feel selfish and guilty in claiming a piece of my own life. Because no, I'm NOT the one with cancer...but then again...
it consumes and wreaks havoc underneath the surface of everyone....EVERYONE....that comes in contact with it. And you must....I must....keep an eye looking out the window....keep that window, with its light, open...because out there...that's where life begins again. In the after part.

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