“I’ve had a great life. I’m not afraid to die. It’s just the horrible stuff that comes before it that’s got me down.”
That’s what my mother said to me last night on the phone. She’s scheduled for a radical mastectomy next week, and then radiation, maybe chemo. Today, that statement keeps reverberating in mind. The horrible stuff that comes before it, yep, that is the real drag.
Maybe she will die of cancer, maybe she won’t, but she’s somewhere past seventy living in a senior residential community and all too aware of the various horrible stuff that can precede death. She’s considered not doing anything, until she realized that choosing that course could be even more hideous. Even if you don’t go into battle with cancer, it for the most part refuses to claim a quick victory, and you certainly turn on the rack of pain plenty before you expire.
Opening Jason’s blog, The Wild Hunt, I discover that yesterday was International Aids Day. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about those I’ve known who have battled either Aids and cancer, some who’ve lost the battle, some who continue to be in active struggle and some who are in a blessed interlude of peace. Some of my pagan and activist friends like to bandy about the word “warrior”, liking to define themselves as such, although they are for the most part devoted to non-violence. I’ve never liked the term, wanting to distance myself from anything with war embedded in it. But, in thinking of those with cancer or Aids, I’m thinking today that they should be called warriors, as opposed to “patients”. This, I can get behind.
There’s a death I’ve imagined for myself, one that’s come to me in dreams and visions. It’s a quick death, and the broken glass and bright red blood of my possible last moments has infused my art, coming to be quite beautiful to me, and not at all horrible. May it be so…and may it be a long way off.
I'm having a hard time imagining the horrible stuff today. For anybody.
6 comments:
Much warmth and energy headed in your mother's direction, tons of love and Reiki to you. "The horrible stuff" is what convinces us to let go of this precious existence. We humans love living our lives and hang on like crazy no matter what.
Sometimes the horrible stuff is just a matter of getting very old and creaky and understanding it's OK to let go of the meat puppets that carry us through our lives.
Here's hoping your mother dies of very old age, painlessly, in her bed.
I had breast cancer nine years ago and had a lumpectomy, radiation, and chemo. I was in my very early 40s at the time. I don't know that I'd do chemo again. Radiation and surgery are not so bad.
At the time when I was fighing cancer, I read a story about an AIDS patient whose friends were urging him to "be a warrior," and to "fight" the disease. He asked them, "Please. Don't demand of me that I make an enemy of my own death."
I've never forgotten that.
May the Goddess guard you and your mother.
I saw a friend today at the dojo I hadn't seen in months. Her son, my age and quite troubled, recently committed suicide. Chip Dunbar, a local musician whose house I was just at last month for an incredible music party, keeled over from heart trouble last week and was dead almost instantly.
I'm with you about wanting a quick if not painless death, but I think it's kind of like reserving a rental car. You can put in your reservation, but almost always you end up with a completely different model. All we can really be assured of is that we'll get to where we're headed, and hopefully our survivors won't be left with more of a mess after we're gone than they had to deal with while we were growing old.
I don't like to think of you or any of my friends dying, but I have never had a year so full of death within my circle of friends and acquaintances. I will pray that your mother has a swift passing, whenever it is her time, and that you and your sisters are spared the agony of a slow demise.
A compellingly sad and contemplative piece. I repeat that I am so sorry about your mother's situation, and send my love to you and yours.
It's been a while since we last got in touch, and I wanted to say the support of you and others with regards to a, er, offline matter (for now) is manifesting in terms of what's been developing.
Drop me a line when you can. I've switched to using online email and can't import my contacts (I might be able to - I might just be being a bit lacking in the necessary skill!). x
I haven't had breast cancer but I've had a mastectomy anyway. It's hard but we have to be very optimists.
Breast cancer treatment options including mammography, MRI, ultrasound, and image-guided and surgical biopsies.
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