living with dying

Living with the stark reality of life and death has been an incredible discovery forcing me to see how I've spent inordinate amounts of energy denying it.

In my early twenties I made serious life decisions on a whim --and hurt a lot of people in the process-- in part because of my deep conviction that life would go on forever for others and for me.

This is perhaps not too uncommon for young people. But as a middle aged adult I see so many decisions in my life are based on the idea that I will continue to live a long time as will all the people around me. Maybe we will - maybe we won't. But it's definitely more comfortable to believe we will.

I hear people say things like, "Live every day to the fullest" and I resist the temptation to roll my eyes.

Yet here I am and here we are.

Tad's wedding ring came back from the jewelers where it got expanded and while we shared our pleasure we also had the discussion about what I should do with it if he dies.

With every voice mail that he leaves I go through a two minute wrestling match with myself: keep it or erase it? keep it? erase it? I have saved a dozen already.

I reach to touch his upper arm and remember the titanium piece holding his once broken bones together. And I wonder how it will survive cremation.

In one Buddhist tradition monks actually practice a form of meditation by which they are invited to imagine the corpse of someone they love being eaten by bugs; a centuries-old practice in reminding ourselves that life is ephemeral.

As Tad and I pack our bags and prepare to head to Stanford Hospital for another month of chemo, sickness and hopefully immune rebirth we are both aware that each go-around is harder on his body and less likely to render his leukemia remissive. We're both aware that the chemo itself might end Tad's life. And at the same time we see that the bone pain is getting worse and worse, the leukemia slowly eating away at his marrow.

Yesterday while coming home from meditation it occurred to me: if a doctor told me tomorrow that I have three months left to live I feel pretty sure I would take it in stride. I can't be certain of course but I feel I've lived a full, beautiful, love-filled life. I wouldn't exactly be happy but I feel like I would be at peace with this idea (as much as one can imagine the unimaginable).

So then the question emerges: why do I fight with every cell in my body the death of this man I love so dearly? Why do I want --more than anything in the world-- for him to continue living not too far away from me?

At the same time I want our life together to be stress-free. I want relief from the indescribable pain of powerlessness I feel every time he winces or moans from the deep bone aches.

Sometimes my own broken-heart-pain makes things so difficult I can't support him; I get curt and impatient. At times I imagine the only way we'll ever be free of pain and stress is for him to die. It reminds me of those days in the 80's when certain gay men got infected by HIV because they could no longer stand wondering when the other shoe would drop.

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I'm told the Jews who moved to Israel after surviving the Holocaust were not really listened to by the locals. Their stories of pain were no doubt too much for other people who were busy building a nascent country. I imagine this is true for Tad's and my story; that some people stay away because of the sheer pain of being around us.

And yet...

How can I convey the amount of sweetness, beauty and love we experience every day. When I try to explain it I find myself wondering if I'm selling my psyche a line of bullshit. Is this really true or do I just tell myself this to avoid feeling the incredible pain?

I think it's my mind playing tricks on me. What brain could possibly imagine immense pain and deep joy at the very same time? It is indeed a rare thing for us humans to experience! The beautiful Julia tells me this is one of the "cancer lessons" her dear friend taught her as she was dying: joy and pain as two sides of the same coin.

For some reason this morning I found myself remembering two classic phrases I often heard during my childhood Christian education: Peace on Earth (during Christmas) and Love thy neighbor.

It suddenly occurred to me that these are not some impersonal generic ethos for me to live by; these are concrete solutions to real-life issues right here, right now.

I can strive to find peace in my heart this very minute. I can actively love and be loved by those who surround me.

Despite my sorrow these two lead me to experience a third dictum: Joy to the world.

Joy to the world even in the face of leukemia.