May

I’VE BEEN walking around listening to the sounds of and smelling the smells of May. I am reminded that it is by far my favorite month. It always has been, especially the last two weeks. But deep within the bird song, the sounds of the early summer, there is something I haven’t been able explain. Even though everything is exactly as I would expect it to be – In the context of all of the Mays that have come before, and become my favorite few days of the year, there has been something very slightly odd. I realized what it was yesterday, while out watering my garden. I didn’t get to experience May last year. I was busy getting ready for my surgeries in Pittsburgh. I was gathering medical records, actually traveling to Pittsburgh to consult doctor Bartlett, and I just simply did not lift my gaze from my work to notice. Two things I would say about this: I didn’t realize I was doing it until May came around again this year, and last May was the only May I’ve failed to notice. Oh my gosh friends, it is with a welling up of tears I remember all of the finest times in my life; Always in May. Grand backpacking trips, climbing high mountains, canoeing beautiful rivers, exploring deep caves, competing for regional championships on bicycles, looking at wild flowers, sitting still in rainy, darkening woods listening to whip-0r-wills. And for many years May was the time I was preparing for my Son, my Jonny Boy to come for the summer. I don’t have a single ill memory of May. Is it surprising that I didn’t notice as May last year passed without my notice? I think not. Oddly, I was diagnosed with the first reoccurrence of the cancer early last May, yet my heart does not make an association. Those first few days afterwards, I was certain I was doomed. I was certain I would not live much longer, but when I met with Pittsburgh, everything seemed like it would be fine. The treatment itself nearly killed me, and I wasn’t back on my feet again until about September. But as I regained my strength, I also began to set aside the belief I had that my life would be cut short. I began to think that the doctors had it wrong, and I would survive. Very few, yet some do survive my illness. Why then couldn’t it be me? It could. So it is, I find myself this May, still fighting yet a second reoccurrence; yet my survival beliefs so strong, I never even questioned whether the treatments would be successful. During this chemo session (starting at the beginning of March) I have not had to endure the sickness and pain of chemo with the addition of an impending since of doom – my belief in healing so strong, so rooted in my faith in Christ and Our Father in Heaven, I have been left in peace to suffer the sickness without the question of survivability. I think I decided that it simply didn’t matter if I survived or not, I am free to believe anything I want, or at least anything my brain can convince my heart is true, true or not. I go into my final chemo treatment in less than a week. I face this final treatment, still very sick and in a great deal of pain from the previous treatment. All of this time, I have fought hard to get on my feet, stay on my feet, get up, go out, keep doing things, don’t give in, don’t give up… thinking, the only way I am actually sick is if I believe that I am sick. Perhaps this, so I could see May this year in all of its glory. This morning, today, and yesterday too, I feel less resolve. Each morning, hours before the sunrise, the birds begin to sing – seemingly eager to start a new day. And so I stir, also eager to experience whatever the day has in store for me. Yet as the treatments pile up, my body becomes weaker (from fighting the cancer, probably not the cancer itself), getting to my feet in the delightfully dark predawn, I am beset with great pain. It seems every bone in my body rebels when I get up, and place my living load upon my skeleton. The pain in my bones has always subsided quickly, and by the time coffee is made, I can move much better. Not so lately. I don’t suppose I ever thought I would get this sick; this incapacitated. Of course, my surgeries last summer, put me down much more than I am now. But that was expected. That was from having been cut open from my breast bone to my pelvic bone, and much of my insides cut away. Nothing like that has occurred to make me this weak. Chemo does not come with a knife, making the sickness more stealthy I suppose. This May, I find I am alive and sick. I also alive and well. Each day, I rise to find my limits, over and over. Am I a fool? To leave the house every day seeking joy and wellbeing, almost without fail to return sick and defeated? Not a fool. I always try. I have kept trying. Having missed last May, and sensing something different still in this May, I also find, that May before last, I had no idea I was sick. I had no idea there was cancer in my body. I wasn’t feeling sick, so I passed through that May as I had the forty seven mays prior – with complete normalcy – extraordinary beauty, loveliest of times, the Beautiful Earth adorning – and just that recently, I had no reason to believe I had anything other than a normal chance at longevity. I still am confident I will survive far longer than the doctors believe I will. I have learned, I cannot take the events of any given day to predict my future. I am so sick some days. I go out sometimes, thinking I will fare the movement well, then as suddenly as anything I’ve ever known, I feel the strength drain out of my body in a sensation like it is draining out through my feet; pouring out of my arms, and chest and legs and head, like water poured out on the ground. I make my way back home, sometimes dejected, sometimes not. I settle into my home, my bed and hope and pray tomorrow will be better. Alarmingly, today, I am not sure how much longer I can resist this illness. Six hundred and forty three days a good fight makes. Only normal after that much time, I’d look for new footing.