The Weight of the Wait (Lisa)

Young people! They act like they’re going to live forever! I am sure this was hurled at me as a teen, when I acted a bit too happy-go-lucky and I am positive I said some version of this to my own kids at times but now that I am older I marvel at the ability to live a carefree sort of life.

When facing a life-threatening illness it takes a tremendous amount of focused energy to live joyfully like that, to be present in the moment. As we adjust to this vulnerable new way of living a life, moment by moment, a life that isn’t consumed with dying but with living, somehow over time, miraculously that careless - carefree courage returns and then you almost absentmindedly return to living in the moment of NOW, as if you’ll live forever. You find a way to let go of the constant worry and just live…

Cancer can do a number on your brain. I am blessed to be a survivor of several cancers. For the most part, I celebrate life with hope. The years I gratefully stack, one on top of another, but as time goes on and my screenings of CATS and MRIs are stretched out, I can get anxious at testing time, holding my breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

It is unnerving to remember, how beautifully unremarkable that morning was, when I first heard of the tumor growing in my bronchial tube. We were sleeping in on that Saturday morning when out of nowhere that phone rang, that jolt and we suddenly understood, once again, and down to our bones, the fragile nature of our present life. He said, A tumor is blocking 85 percent of your airway and has bust thru the wall, doubling in size. I could barely take in the words as the love of my life looked at me with a huge question mark on his face, Who’s on the phone? I turned my back to him and crushed the phone to my ear multitasking, thinking how am I going to tell him, my daughters, my family as the doctor further explained in my ear how the mass was sitting precariously close to my aorta. Indeed, NOW does not last forever.

This would be my third go around with cancer. Looking back even further, it can be frightening to remember again how naïve I was that first time, how initially I was so relieved to hear I had a huge supposed cyst causing all my mysterious symptoms, puzzling my doctor for over a year, of how I even giggled and cried to finally get to the bottom of my pains, to find an answer, only to discover it was actually ovarian cancer.

Eight months later, I remember how my mouth just dropped when the doctor called about the unrelated mass they found in another organ. I called back arguing that it had be a mistake, that it must have been the button on my overalls they picked up on the scan, but no it was kidney cancer. Again and again, I relearned the lesson: life can forever change in an instant. Nothing remains the same.

This kind of news is always so jolting. Why can’t humans hold on to the knowledge that life is not static, be more prepared so the jolts feel more like hard blips. What compels us to lull back into a happy forgetfulness, a carefree-living-forever feeling? Maybe it is all we can do to have courage in tomorrow, to pretend the shoes are all done dropping and believe that life will go on and all will be well. Maybe it is all on us, or maybe not.

Could this be the unnamed way of putting it in God’s hands? Is this what gives us the courage to live in hope, in the holy present with abandon? God holding our worries in His hands, and He placing the courage to be forgetful of painful moments, placing hope instead, firmly in our own upturned palms? If this is it, it works. Most of my life I forget the fragile nature of life, living in confident hope except for the days surrounding my follow-up diagnostic tests. These are the days I need to remember to hand it over to the one who holds me in His loving arms.