When Lisa was suffering the horrific, barbaric, debilitating effects of chemotherapy, first via standard treatments and then later clinical trials, there was nothing I could do to alleviate her pain. I was constantly chasing the speeding eight ball trying to understand the side effects of her treatment, knowing all the while that I was helpless to mitigate them. The best I could do was to be with her. In seven years of treatment, I never missed an appointment or treatment with her. I was where I needed to be, by her side, as her husband and her friend. In truth, it was all I could do for her. Unfortunately, we wrestled the unseeable and lost.
Now she’s gone forever, and I’m still helpless to alleviate anyone’s pain or suffering. This time, it is my children who suffer as they try to come to terms with losing their mother. It is as if Lisa’s cancer continues to punish my family. The bad dreams at night and the painful realizations in the light of day are both beyond my ability to ease. I’m tired of losing to cancer. All I can offer them is loving words, long distance hugs, and a virtual shoulder.
At the party we held in Lisa’s honor after she died, the kids and I each gave short speeches. Cameron stated in his that, while Lisa had died, cancer had not beaten her, she had taken the bastard with her. Unfortunately, I think he overstated it a bit because he, his sister and I are still suffering from cancer’s destructive forces, this time in the form of grief. I continue to wrestle the unseeable and lose.
If you’re lucky, once in a lifetime a love comes along that shakes you to the very center of your being. If you are lucky enough to have been afflicted with such a love, you must acknowledge that one result will be that time will speed up. There is a phenomenon known as Vierordt’s Law, which states that short-term time is overestimated and long-term time is underestimated. In short, days seem to last incredibly long and years fly by. This can be best summed up in an example. When the kids were first born, everyone we met told us to enjoy these times because time would quickly pass. At the time, all I wanted was one good night’s sleep. That was 21 years ago, and I finally understand what those wise people meant.
Nothing heals the wounds of loss. As Rose Kennedy famously supposed, “It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” As anyone who has lost someone close can attest, these words ring devastatingly true.
Growing up, Pete Rose was my idol. He played baseball like I thought the game should be played. All hustle, all the time. As I grew older, my idols came and went (so did my baseball skills!), and I learned that there is a difference between heroes and idols. I found that idolatry dehumanized the person and ascribed to them mythical attributes. A hero by definition (and by contrast) has done something heroic, but allows for human mistakes and misgivings, in a word imperfections or the right to be just a regular person who has done something extraordinary.
Thoughts at Large 