For Becky

I stared at the blinking cursor on my screen and had a moment...imagining all the people around the world simultaneously staring at their computer screens and blinking cursors...all the different languages and countries, homes and offices, and the pause before each writer began to type.

My hesitation, due to the fact that what I write won't do justice to the woman I am writing about. It's difficult to write about truly extraordinary people. Accomplished people are easy...rattling off a list of things they have done which are impressive and easily esteemed. But, to write about a truly extraordinary person is almost impossible- because capturing essence and lightness of being...forced into paragraphs, fails to convey the magnificence of who the person is. In this case, a woman of rare all encompassing beauty. A wife. A mother. A teacher. A friend. A mentor. A fighter. An inspirer. An encourager. An artist. A soul so imbued with kindness and love, as to leave indelible marks on all who crossed her path.

So, this is for you Rebecca Jackson Schwartz. My dear friend...as I sit at my computer with tears streaming down my cheeks, as my heart sends all the love it can in prayer, across the miles, to be with you in the twilight. I know you would smile at me, at Katy, at all of us...and tell us to seek what is most important in this life- to live well, to live in love, service to all, goodness, and kindness toward others.


For Becky: Beautiful sparkly brown eyes shine with love, and a smile that makes everything feel softer and eased.

For Becky: A fellow foodie, and an extraordinary chef and baker. She can make the most simple dishes look elegant and beautiful, and combines perfect flavors for discriminating palettes!

For Becky: Who taught me from the first week of my own cancer diagnosis, what my attitude needed to be to fight for my life. She reminded me that God had us in His grand design and plan. She taught me how to love others in suffering, how to surrender, how to be courageous, and how to have real hope. She taught me I could control my responses, when I couldn't control anything else. She taught me to try to do everything I could to live, but not to be afraid if I was being called home to God. Most importantly: she taught me not to lose my laughter, and demanded I laugh through the pain to survive it.

For Becky: Because her heart pitter patters as much as mine does for our Colin. For the days when I didn't have the energy to pick up my own phone or read a text. But I could smile through a medicated haze, hearing, "Look, Becky sent you a photo."  It's my turn to return the favor dear girl. 

For Becky: Who has loved Katy since high school. Who has been with Katy in the depths of pain as she struggled to cope with her best friends having cancer at the same time. Becky, who will love Katy through the rest of this life and all of the next. Becky, who will be in the stream of sunshine warming Katy's face, the moments of glad grace, and in all the stories about you, that Katy will save for your sweet son. Katy will carry your heart in her own.

For Becky: Who has lived this quote perfectly. Who fought cancer year after year after year, pain after excruciating pain, surgeries, treatments, chemo after chemo, in love and in gratitude. Who listened to me cry as I wished for a brief moment that I hadn't survived, because the physical pain was so overwhelming. Becky who calmed me as I said over and over, "How have you done it, Becky? How have you pushed through this? How do you keep the light in your soul?" Becky, who forced me to memorize this and live it with her.

For Becky: Who could keep a sense of humor in the worst of times. Who fought for justice for others with passionate resolve. Becky, who could bring kindness to anyone, who listened patiently, and who has been doing this every day I've known her. Becky, who many describe as, "the kindest and most loving person they've ever met."

For Becky: For the five minutes in which our entire conversation was a departure from our norm, singing a song to ourselves on the phone, with lyrics solely consisting of, "Fuck Cancer, Fuck Cancer, Fuuuuuccck Cancer!" (In a round)

For Becky: Who has an indomitable spirit, who has not given up, who has taken hit after hit, maintaining gratitude for her life and joy for the gift of living. Who reminded all of us, "You don't have to have physical health to be happy, you have to have love. If you have love, you will have a great deal of gratitude, joy, and peace."

For Becky: Who is the personification of this four-leaved clover 

For Becky: I will sing and pray the psalms of your beloved Tehillim for you, when you are too weak to lift your voice. I love you sweet friend, and love remains eternal. 

Psalm 102

O LORD, hear my prayer;

let my cry come before You.

Do not hide Your face from me

in my time of trouble;

turn Your ear to me;

when I cry, answer me speedily.

For my days have vanished like smoke

and my bones are charred like a hearth.

My body is stricken and withered like grass;

too wasted to eat my food.

Psalm 130

A song of Ascent

Out of the depths I call to You, O Lord.

My Lord, hearken to my voice; let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas.

G‑d, if You were to preserve iniquities, my Lord, Who could survive?

But forgiveness is with You, that You may be feared.

I hope in the Lord; my soul hopes, and I long for His word.

My soul yearns for the Lord more than [night] watchmen [waiting] for the morning, wait for the morning.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is kindness; with Him there is abounding deliverance.

And He will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

 

We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Life

Some days I feel like my emergency broadcasting system has been activated, tested, tried, and now...what?

I wish I could explain what it feels like to prepare for death, and then just go back to daily living like it was no big deal. It's certainly not a scenario I have any kind of a monopoly on...there are many others who have faced serious illness, wars, and traumatic events that brought them to the moment(s) of facing their own mortality, and then, when those moments had passed, back they went...to every day living.  

Several friends have asked when I was going to write a post surgical update- but until now, I couldn't find the wherewithal to write. I had to go through the first part of the healing process and learn the lessons. 

On The Unexpected: I've been to two funerals in the last few weeks. The first, for an acquaintance, a couple years older than me...who was a cherished husband, and father to two little girls. He was an avid coffee aficionado, and a man deeply beloved in my community as a kind and generous philanthropist. He was constantly working to remember and care for the least among us, and encouraged each of us to do the same. 

The second funeral was for the 3 year old son of one of my best friends. I sat in the hospital room in the predawn of the morning...her recently deceased son lying between us on the hospital bed. We stroked his hair, and marveled at his beautiful, peaceful little body. His mother held him, sending him home to God, amidst ample tears and kisses. The following week, still in somewhat of a daze, the Church was packed full of many loved ones, and his funeral Mass was beautiful.  

This little boy had a terrible start in life, the victim of horrific and incapacitating child abuse at the hands of his biological parents. My girlfriend and her husband adopted him from the foster care system. They wrapped him in constant support and care, everyday, in their large and bustling family. As he came to the end of his brief earthly life, that little soul was cradled and rocked in his mother's loving embrace, as he passed into eternal life. I don't know that I have ever experienced a greater intimacy than being present in that sacred space with a parent who has just lost their child. My girlfriend and I speak very candidly and uncensored about many things (read: pretty much everything).  We mused that her son's resting place, and my future den of earthly repose will join us together with yet another thread of connection. Her son was cremated and interred at the same columbarium where my remains will one day be placed. We joked (but were simultaneously quite serious) about how comforting it was to think that we would be there side by side. He in his carved burled wood urn, and I in my butterfly one. A twofer stop for a prayerful visit...nestled in a garden cloister adjacent to the Church.  

These two deaths reinforced for me, the very strange mystery of the time we are given here on Earth...and that there are many questions we will never have answers to this side of heaven...why do some get to live long lives into old age, while others die so much earlier? How can we make sense of the problems of suffering and evil? Why does {when} death comes seem so deeply unfair, with no discernible rhyme or reason as to who will be chosen for its embrace?

To mentally and emotionally wade through the agonizing pain and excruciating loss that exists in this world can seem to be both nonsensical and emotionally paralyzing. Keeping despair at bay may become a daily challenge. It might strike with morbid curiosity...to wonder what the purpose was...in the life of a small abused child who would die at such an early juncture? What benevolent God allows such suffering? What God creates an innocent child who will know so much pain? Wouldn't it have been better that he had not been born? It is tempting to pridefully rise up in personal comparison to God. To think (as many of us have done, if we are honest)...if we were to be found at the helm of steering all of Creation, we would never allow a child to suffer, as so many do the world over. We would never allow many of the evils that plague our world. We would have done it differently, we would have done a better job at "being God."  It can be easy to fall into the pride of believing ourselves to be wiser than the Creator. With angered broken hearts, we can begin to believe that we would make better choices. If we presume God to be indifferent to the cries and groaning of humanity, eyes turned away from all of us below, then we can fall into the sad state of deeming God unworthy of our worship and devotion. 

When I was younger, I worked in the field of child protection, and my girlfriend, mentioned in this story, still does. We each carry an indelible mark on our souls and psyches at having seen the darkness, and the abyss of evil that exists in the destruction of innocence.  I've had to wrestle with some of the above questions I mentioned, and I still do wrestle through the night, like Jacob and the angel, with a few of the confusing ones from time to time.

I've made as much peace with the lack of satisfactory answers (and with God) as possible, by acknowledging and truly believing a few things: A. free will must exist in order for authentic love to exist. Each human had to be given free will. It is the misuse of this free will (that we each possess) which creates many of the problems, evils, sins, and suffering in the world. The flip side of this, is that we can each (like my girlfriend and her husband) use our free will for all that is good, virtuous, healing, and holy. 

B. I am NOT, in fact, in any way or by any means, smarter, wiser, or a better planner of how the universe should unfold than God is. There was a point at which I had to decide that if I believed my faith was really truth, I had to surrender to mystery. To be able to say (and to mean) to God, "I can't understand your plan God, I don't know why 'xyz' is happening. It makes absolutely no sense to me, I don't know why you allow this, but "Thy will be done." Choosing to accept that I just have to live without a complete/acceptable answer to my burning questions this side of heaven, has been oddly peaceful.  

C. I can only seek to assure you of the one part I am absolutely sure of...the lesson of this little boy's life (and each one of our lives) is about love. I fully trust my senses as they have taken in the experiences of watching many loving parents look upon their children with joy, delight, and deep unconditional love. It is not merely an evolutionary accidental that such a capacity exists within us. My nephew and nieces come to mind...and I think of how I love them with a depth of love I never knew existed in myself until they were born. The capacity for that intensely magnificent pure emotion, duty, dedication, determination, and care...to will their good above my own is God given. If it is God given within our souls, it must first exist within God, God must have those delights and joys for each one of us. If that is the case, then I can never be correct in believing God to be indifferent, disinterested, or deeply cruel in His allowance of suffering. It is overly simplistic to lay out these thoughts late at night, in a mish mash way that cannot stand up to exacting rigors of theological and philosophical scrutiny. There is no truth I need to reinvent within my faith; and my theological, intellectual, and spiritual answers come in understanding the person of Jesus Christ. I have 2,000 years of ancestors who asked many of the same questions, and there are catechetical responses and explanations to all that has been posed.

But I mean something different by what I write here...acceptance? It took years to form and solidify the tools I have: to believe in, by my own discernment, firmly for myself...that my lingering questions about the allowance of the horrors I have seen in real life, and through the news around the globe, will (in many respects) remain unanswered mystery. I will not master the understanding or the scope of God's design, in this Earthly life. But, I will (and do) trust God's love as truth, and want to remain within it.

  

   

I imagine and believe it all does make sense...the macro design. At present, all we can see is the underside of a large quilt-the scraggly edges, wayward matted, tangled threads, knots, and the mashed together pieces that don't line up. We have an eternal promise that one day all the tears and pain will be washed away. For the virtues of hope and faith do not exist in Heaven. They are unnecessary because they will have been fulfilled. Of the three theological virtues, only charity will remain. After our deaths, when that divine promise is fulfilled, we may finally be able to turn the quilt over to gaze upon it, in its entirety, of swirling colors, shapes, patterns, and beauty. Then, at long last, we will finally understand that which we were incapable of comprehending (while only viewing the under side of the quilt, from our Earthly lives below). The mystery will finally be solved, and in peace, we will fully admire and appreciate the grand design of God's plan. Which, was love all along. 

On Humility, Humiliation, and Pain

In my life, seeking after the virtue of humility has usually meant that humiliation would come along as an intertwined and uninvited guest. I've seldom been able to grow in the former without experiencing the latter. My most recent lessons occurred after being an inpatient in the hospital for the removal of a brain tumor, and then subsequently having to endure a second surgery because of complications. 

There are several types of pain we all collectively endure-mental, spiritual, emotional, physical...and each of us tend to be better at handling one type over another. In my case, I can handle emotional pain (both my own and others) like a champ-an Olympic multi gold medalist really. Writing that might knock off some of those humility points for me...but it's the truth. Throw the worst human suffering at me and I will be present with strength and calm in the middle of it. 

Physical pain, on the other hand, has been the type of pain I have gone to great lengths to avoid in my life. I am an absolute wimp in the face of physical pain and tolerate it very poorly. Thus, it seems to come my way fairly often. Despite the opportunities to try improve going through it, I have yet to do so. 

The thing about physical pain is that it can turn into a beast- destroying the capacity of our intellect, manners, discipline, and logic to hold back the very primal part of us that wants to be out of that pain. After the surgeries, there was no stiff upper lip or quiet virtuous suffering when the searing pain really hit and the pain medication had worn off. I remember vividly thinking, "I had this procedure to fight for more time, and now all I want is for time to speed up." Hearing a nurse tell you that your medication isn't due for two more hours is almost the worst thing to fall upon the ears of someone in ghastly physical pain. There is no relief. There is no clear thinking. No prayer comes easily other than, "dear God, please make this stop." The directives from the surgeons included one that I wasn't allowed to cry because it would mess up my stitches and packing.  So I moaned, and clenched my sheets, and yelled into my pillow. 

Physical pain doesn't follow an allocated medication dosing schedule. And, when medication is due, it doesn't necessarily mean you are getting it right then...because the nurse has 17 other patients who also need her/his help. When the nurse does come in, and they give you the medication, and stroke your cheek, and give a word of encouragement, a huge wave of gratitude hits- because there is a slight reprieve for an hour or two. The cloudy thinking from opiates is still more lucid than the primal thinking at the height of physical pain. 

In moments of lucid thought, I tried to think about people in the world who had no help for their pain. I offered my pain for them, I prayed for them, I felt sane. But in the heat of the unmedicated overwhelming pain- my prayer (and capacity for articulate verbal skills) wasn't capable of being "other focused", it was a desperate continual, primal, mental, emotional, and spiritual cry for it to all end quickly. In much suffering I was able to laugh, smile, and be joyful...but it was a struggle to find any kind of authentic smile when the beastly grasp of physical pain took hold.

Enter Humiliation... 

When a 20 year old young male nurse aide came into my room and asked me if I wanted him to give me a bath, my jaw just about dropped to the floor. I realize in modernity that both men and women are aides and nurses, but it shocked my sensibilities and sense of modesty to the core. I declined...and I waited for two days until there was a female aide on duty who could do it. Any semblance of modesty, I possessed, however, was something that quickly went by the wayside. Every day teams of doctors and nurses were pulling off my gown throughout the day to check wounds, to chain drains, to look at stitches, move and adjust sensors, give me shots in my stomach, take blood, pull catheters etc. They all had a job to do and they needed to move expediently through the patients. While it didn't phase any of them, the lack of privacy over my body bothered me a lot at first.  After a couple of days, I was too tired and too weak to care about the lack of modesty any longer. No one reties the back of your gown after they get done working on you. When I had to go to the bathroom, it was with help, and I didn't even have the strength to reach my arm behind me to try to tie the gown or even to try to hold it closed. The mental hierarchy becomes just walking across the room and back. It's strange you know (when we are in states of health and wellness) to imagine that walking ten steps will feel like running five miles (while on fire). The exhaustion that sets in after major surgeries feels so incompatible to any other experience.  

Many pain medications can cause severe constipation and impaction. When the pain of that reached its crescendo for me, it was the middle of the night. I was not calm, not polite, not casually ringing my bell and asking the nurse to pop in. No, I was crying and doubled over in my bed yelling, "Oh my God, please help me! Please help me right now!" Physical pain is trickster full of surprises. Just when you think you've experienced it in its entirety...it will turn at you with its beastly laugh and say, "I bet you've never felt this before!" Then it will deliver on its promise and hurt you in an exquisite manner never before imagined.

My male nurse came running in and he ran his hands through my hair and very calmly whispered, "Don't worry dear, I'm here. I'll help you through this. Everything will be okay." Despite his compassion and care, I strongly desired to turn down his offer of help (because I knew what was coming and what it would entail).  Any sense of propriety I had left went by the wayside, and I had to enter into a deeply uncomfortable intimacy- a male nurse watching me in a state of raw agony as I sobbed from the crippling physical pain, and from the deep humiliating embarrassment that he was going to have to give me an enema. I realize that's a very gross and deeply personal thing to share. Here's my rationale-that experience was the pinnacle of post surgical humiliation for me...one of the greatest humiliations I have experienced in my adult life actually. It made me realize the rawness and littleness of my humanity. Of my vulnerability. Of my desperate neediness. Of my weakness. Of my total dependence on this other person for any kind of immediate help and relief. My nurse was professional and kind beyond belief, but I was so mortified I couldn't meet his gaze for the next 24 hours. 

Wisdom was growing in that suffering, and I entered into a new level of understanding myself, of recognizing another layer of the interconnectedness of each of us in our humanity at the most basic level. Pain is quite an equalizer for all of us across the board. My nurse could sit with the physical sufferings of others as I could with the emotional. He helped to heal me from debilitating pain. Pain that had turned me into a version of myself I didn't recognize. He worked with me so I could finally raise my head at that beast and say, "you don't get to win anymore today." The lesson here is how quickly the pendulum can swing for any of us to go from being put together, high functioning healthy people, to experiencing a desperate embarrassed neediness on the very basic level of physical care and dependence on others. 

On The Roommate

My third day in the hospital I had a roommate assigned to my room. She came in yelling at someone on her cell phone, turned on the TV and blasted the volume (the TV hadn't been on once since my stay) and proceeded to behave like a character off of the Jerry Springer show.

My initial reaction was not a Christian response. It was comprised of anger, disdain, and negative judgment. I desperately needed to sleep and could not because she would not turn off the television nor use headphones. The nurses told me there was no policy in place for TV shut off during sleeping hours (like 10pm-6am). This roommate kept yelling at people on her cell phone and I couldn't block any of the noise out. I paged the nurse and asked her to move me anywhere else on the floor or to do anything, and she told me she couldn't.  I started to weep and whimpered, "I just had brain surgery, I NEED to sleep and rest." She apologized but told me she was helpless to change anything. 

A few hours later, a woman (the roommate's mother) came into the room yelling profanity at her and began to kick the roommate in her bed and berate her in a horrible manner, telling her to "get up out of that effing bed right now." The nurse came in and the roommate's mother physically attacked her. She hit the nurse! Security was called and the mother was dealt with and the roommate was moved.    

It was only as I reflected on the events that had just transpired that an authentic Christian response formed in my soul. Mercy, humility, and charity, came rushing in like a tidal wave. I imagined what it must have been like for my roommate to grow up with that kind of parent, the behaviors that would have been learned and passed on. I mourned for her and for the lack of decent and authentic love and care she had not received. I contrasted that against the gift of my own very supportive and loving family. Any trace of disdain melted away and my heart ached for her, especially for her to be attacked in the midst of her own physical pain, by her mother-someone who should be a tender and nurturing presence to and for her. 

The experience made me realize I didn't have the worst of it when it came to pain, even though it sure felt like it in the heat of the moment. My physical pain might last for a few weeks or months. But I was surrounded by loving support and caring people to help me through it.

But my roommate...what she went through, not knowing the experience of unconditional love and acceptance by her own mother, feeling unloved and uncared for...that was a far greater and longer lasting pain that needed remedy.

Walking In Beauty

I don't know how to start this post. It has been percolating for weeks and there is so much to choose from about my gratitude to family and friends...I haven't been able to figure out where to begin.

Perhaps, I'll start with a story about Kaladi Brothers (a local coffee watering hole for you non Alaskans) and Tiny Koop. 

You know those people in the grocery store you run into and say, "hey, let's go get coffee sometime," and you totally mean it in the moment, but you never actually do go out for that coffee...because it would mean having to get to know that person, and making time to leave your den of solitude, and finding time in an already busy life, and it might feel a little awkward. But then upon later reflection you're sort of wistful about the whole thing and wish you had just done it?

This coffee date story begins with dear Tiny Koop. Tiny Koop was a chaplain when I worked at the Police Department. She was a bubbly blonde and had a smile that lit up a room as she joyfully darted in and out of offices, pausing to check in with all of us to see how we were faring. My memory is of smiling at her a few times or waving a quick hello, but we never really chatted too much or exchanged more than pleasantries. A couple years later, we became facebook friends. Say what you like about social media, one of the fantastic things about it is that you can get to know people in new ways...their quotes and quips, stories, photos of their families, their "likes."  (I don't know if that's a thing or not to look at the list of things your friends like? Or if that delves into creeperland? I enjoy seeing what my friends like...and sometimes I'll add one of their liked items to my own list...for example "Princess Bride." OF COURSE I like that too. That band? LIKE!).  After you read a friend's wall posts several times a week for a couple years, you get a sense and appreciation of their character and who they are in this sliver of an online snapshot. It's perfectly realistic that some feel a lot closer to others through this medium. Especially, when people are honest and real in what they say, and don't just give you their life highlight reel. A level of vulnerability can certainly lead to increased feelings of intimacy and knowledge of other people.

Tiny Koop has been through breast cancer twice, several surgeries, grueling treatment regimes, then more surgeries. When I found out about my brain cancer diagnosis, she was one of the first people to ask me if I wanted to meet up for coffee.  I told her I wasn't ready yet, but that I would try to call her down the road in a few weeks. I thought this was going to go the way of..."we'll have a cuppa someday..." but the first day I woke up unable to keep my balance or walk normally anymore, I texted Tiny Koop for that coffee date. 

For a moment, tangent jump with me to the subject of 'being proposed to.' You know how there are certain situations that we react to, in the same manner every time?  Well, every time I see (on television, in a magazine, in a book, in real life) someone being proposed to in a very public way (especially at a sporting event)...I cringe with the kind of discomfort that permeates every cell of my body.  If you know me well, you know that I think public proposals sound like a ghoulish nightmare, and you probably also know I would be mortified beyond belief to have something like that ever happen to me...especially a proposal (it should be intimate, just the two of you, no audience...I digress). For those of you who may be thinking, "Hey! I was proposed to in public and loved it...mea culpa!"  Save that for the raging extroverts and entertainers of the world I say.  My main point is to emphatically emphasize that having any attention drawn to me in a public place (IRL) is not my idea of a good time ever, never, never, ever. Of course, there was no way for Tiny Koop to know any of this about me when we met up...after all, we were going to be starting at the 'get to know you stage' of the relationship...sort of. 

When Tiny Koop started the kind of personal journey that changes a person indefinitely, I followed along online via facebook. I often wanted to know how she was every week, what to pray for her and for her family, how she was feeling each step of the way.  I remember actually tearing up and crying a bit while looking at a facebook photo of her the first time she made it up a hike, on a mountain she loved, after surgery. Or watching her change through the stages of chemotherapy...blonde, bald, grey, frail, weak, tired, loved, fighting, pained, faithful, strong. When she allowed me and others to watch and learn, and metaphorically sit at her feet to observe how she was maneuvering through great suffering...I did. It was at a distance...frequent post "likes" and the occasional private message to let her know I was thinking about her and praying for her...but it was also so much more...because I was allowed to witness from the periphery what she was experiencing. And she was candid and real. It changed me. The vulnerability she offered in her human experience led to a feeling of connection and intimacy with her and dare I say...love. I began to love her. 

Don't we all wonder how we would move through something like that if it happened to us? Or, if we have previously been a support person to someone we love through such an ordeal, doesn't it touch on those memories of our own experience(s) to watch another move through it? This kind of suffering brings up those core existential questions for so many of us...

Who will love me through such an illness? Who will be there for me? Who will accept me when I am needy and must one sidedly take and take...when I cannot be in a position to equally give in the relationship? Who will it be safe to be weak in front of? Who can see me in my frailty? Who will accept me when I am not funny? When I don't feel strong? When I cry? When I am angry? When I am in pain all the time? When I need help with simple things like carrying items or feeding my pets? Drinking and feeding myself? Going to the bathroom? Changing my clothing? Making my bed? Who will help care for my children? Who will be a support to my spouse? Who will accept us when so many of the things we think makes us "us" get stripped away?

Wow, that tangent turned into several of them, but let's circle back around to the coffee shop. When Tiny Koop came into Kaladi's, I was nursing a terrible headache. She was too, and it was oddly funny and bonding as we tried sitting at various tables to get just the right one where the light wouldn't hurt our eyes. Then she said something that was simply so her..."sorry I'm late, Anastasia, I had a wild bunny situation in the back yard." How can I say something is "so her" when this is the first time we have sat across from each other face to face? Because I spent years learning and listening to who she is... in a different medium. I had a good and much needed laugh at her animated recollection, and we launched into an excellent and real conversation about where we each were. 

She surprised me at one point when I was talking about how I was feeling. I said, "It could be worse, I could be in a country with no medical care, or no pain medication."  She gave me sort of an exasperated look and quipped, "I'm really surprised you're going there. Suffering is suffering. Pain is pain. It is okay to hurt without trying to minimize it."  It was like a quick verbal slap across the cheek...not in a mean way, but in a "wake up and pay attention kind of way."  I realized I had been saying that for other people...well mostly.  I do want to have a sense of gratitude and I am fully aware that I am exceedingly blessed in medical care etc.  But also, and I think this is the little nugget of wisdom in this post...I had been saying that for other people... to try to make it not seem so bad or uncomfortable for them. To not be a Debbie Downer or a complainer. To make it easier for them so that they would still want to be around me. So they would still stay with me through it. But Tiny Koop blew me out of the water. Because the basic message she was freeing me with was, "No honey, go ahead and hurt. It's okay to say it hurts. It's okay to say to others that you are in pain. People will still stay. Be authentic. You don't have to compare your pain and say someone else's is greater, so yours doesn't count."  It has been strange to me in analyzing my own psyche, that I needed permission for that. But for whatever reason I did...and now I have stopped trying to minimize the bad days, while being very mindfully appreciative of the good days. 

So, she and I have this authentically open and honest talk and deep sharing, and then she says, "now I can give you your present."  

A feeling of DREAD takes over, and the cells in my body do a 180 degree turn and start to tingle with disdain.  I can sense what is coming next and I want to get up and bolt out of the coffee shop as quickly as possible. As her broad smile gets bigger and her loving eyes look down at me, she stretches out her arms, while I try to force back the daggers from my own eyes that want to shoot out at her. 

Here it comes. 

I brace myself. 

And, there, in the crowded coffee shop, Tiny Koop stands up and begins to serenade me A capella at the top of her lungs with, "The Glory of Love," by Bette Midler. I mean... Beaches! In a coffee shop! In front of total strangers! Was she trying to kill me?! 

"This is a song I've been singing for a long time.

It's like an old friend.

But, you know, I think it,

it's only recently that I discovered what it's really about."

You've got to give a little, take a little,

and let your poor heart break a little.

That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

You've got to laugh a little, cry a little,

until the clouds roll by a little.

That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

As long as there's the two of us,

we've got the world and all it's charms.

And when the world is through with us,

we've got each other's arms.

There's not a good describing word or phrase in English for feeling several strongly conflicting emotions simultaneously. I was mortified, irritated, exceedingly grateful and humbled, bowled over by her boldness and kindness, effected by the lyrics, rising emotions, and the congested uncried tears about our struggles. It was like an emotional kaleidoscope that kept swirling into different patterns. 

I stood up on my shaky legs with my throbbing head and I wrapped myself into her waiting embrace and hugged her. Settling into embarrassment and thankfulness while many eyes watched us. And, I held on tight. Then, I became aware that I no longer saw anyone else. I didn't pay attention to them. In that moment it was just the arms of my friend and my cancer surviving sister. 

Right then and there, she sang truth into my ear, which was nestled tightly against her shoulder, 

we've got each other's arms... 

Love, ~Anastasia