Real life actually began for me around six weeks before that, when I got the postcard from the James asking me to come back in for magnified mammograms. I stood there at the antique oak table I had stripped and refinished when I was younger and always had energy to spare, looking at that handwritten message, and said, "Uh-oh."
And I was right; that was the beginning of bad news. Slowly over the next weeks of more films and then core biopsy, then meeting with the surgeon, I got it: I could die. I would die some day, and it could be just like this, from something invisible, a cancer that had not formed a lump, that my heredity did not predict, that was discovered only because someone sent me a reminder letter and I gritted my teeth and went in for my annual mammogram, six months late. A destroyer that was invading my body without my knowledge or consent. Since then, I've had two friends die of metastasized breast cancer.
You do not begin your real life until you know that the day is coming when you will die, and you don't know when, and you can't count on any future.
Is that all I have to say? Well, I count my meditation practice as beginning on that day, though I may have begun sitting with healing visualizations before the surgery; you pick a date. (When were you born, in fact? Think about it.) Until then, my life was a horrible f----- up mess in which I knocked around doing things, led by my head, my instructions, my conditioning. Then I began to study Buddhism with fierce devotion.
Now I lead with my heart. I'm still an awful mess with an unfair quotient of suffering, including anger at people who keep insisting that if I only think POSITIVELY and eat horrible food and exercise twice as much, not only can I live forever, but I'll feel constant radiant joy, and that means my suffering is all my fault. I hate those people, I mean, I'm angry at that lie, and all the others that take your life away, and focused anger at certain totally deluded well-meaning idiots is the form it takes. And sooner or later I'll get all of them defriended, or at least I'll figure out how to hide from them.
It is not always easy, being alive and in touch with your feelings. But sometimes it is.
Easy. And pleasant.
And often I'm grateful to be alive.
~~~~~~~
[images: At top, our beloved Sherlock. He used to meditate with us. After 20 minutes, he would get up and leave the room, anticipating the clock. When he began to die three years ago, he didn't know what hit him; neither did we. It was hell for him and us. I still miss him. There will never be anyone like him. Just above, Tashi, who enlivens our life now, attempting to sample a sunflower after Cassie's wedding.]
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I, too, am grateful to be alive. Thanks Jeanne.
ReplyDeleteI love this post. It is SO true. Until we REALLY realize that we will die.....how can we really live?? I try to be grateful everyday too....
ReplyDeleteSome days I know that there are days coming when I will feel grateful, and I think of the old gospel song, Keep your hand on that plow, hold on. And I always think grateful about such things as a pretty secure home and enough food. There are many sick, depressed people who don't have those.
DeleteI to resent people telling me to walk an hour a day 2 years after having 5 lumbar discs fused together
ReplyDeleteJoseph - I want to write a post on exactly why nobody else can tell you your path. This is an excellent example. Nobody else can really know your body, mind, history well enough to tell you what will make you happy. Thanks.
DeleteThe best wisdom comes when you can no longer procrastinate:
ReplyDelete"You do not begin your real life until you know that the day is coming when you will die, and you don't know when, and you can't count on any future."
May sound to many like the unspeakable, but it the reality that really wakes us up.
Thanks, PannaGrandma!
I know you, too, know this through experience.
DeleteI think the saddest thing I've seen are people who had the wake-up call, died in the recovery room but were brought back, or had a stroke, and had their eyes open for a month or two but then fell back into the same old life. I've seen how their eyes glazed over again; they were just not equipped to stick with the truth. It means you radically change your life. It's too bad, because we all have an appointment in Samara. . . . It's always nice to hear from you. Thanks.
"..anger at people who keep insisting that if I only think POSITIVELY and eat horrible food and exercise twice as much, not only can I live forever, but I'll feel constant radiant joy, and that means my suffering is all my fault"
ReplyDeleteWow! I wish I could have verbalized that a few years ago! I almost cried with relief when I read these words. Thank you for understanding this. It is such a difficult element of dealing with others after one has become sick. I spent a long time wondering if they were right.
Lisa