Living on Life's Terms

It is futile to try to live life out of sync with life's terms. Ah, those terms! Consequences to actions, sunny days, rainy days. Days when the wind of it all just gets you off balance and fighting the fall. Then there are smatterings of happiness, even exhilaration. But try as I will to set my own terms, outcomes and finally, balances; I just can't do it.

The day that cancer announced its name in my house everything changed. At first there was the conscious numbness that had absolutely no voice. Quickly though came a new resolve to give my heart to it and to pay attention. The heart of the waiting was centered in a decision to just be there. Most of the time I was.

First there was the surgery. It is not difficult to care for someone who has over forty sutures in their chest. This demonstration of vulnerability, invasion and near destruction are hard to ignore. I can remember sitting by his bed knitting. I was new at knitting and new at all that surrounded me. Oddly, it was an adventure, and a sort of creation. Just as the wool slipped through the needles revealing some degree of turning into something, so too did the caring for the beloved who was sick.

Our relationship had suffered some brokenness and we were living apart. The new changes brought us back together. While disease ravaged his body, healing entered our souls. The dichotomy of it was clear. The living of it exhausting. Time was the enemy as well as the great gift. There was no plan to "work" on things, it just happened.

Once out of the hospital and during months of Chemo, giving became the plan. I gave care and shelter. He gave gratitude. These became the hinges that kept life in us. It was and still is profoundly personal. So much of life was unknown and fearful that we set ourselves a shelter that was visible only to us.

Now in my grief, I still pay attention to living on life's terms. Sometimes it seems unbearable but I'm standing still waiting. Today is a waiting day. Tomorrow shall reveal itself.