FEAR is a four letter word
The older I get the more four letters I put into the “bad word” file. Today I am adding FEAR to the file. Even though the past year I have had to deal with fear straight on, I am beginning to realize that there is no amount of wisdom or age that decreases the level of fear that uncertainty in life brings.
Over the last few months I have watched two of my parents very close friends go through some pretty challenging events. They are older than me and often times we think that age brings wisdom. If you asked me today I would suggest that age has nothing to do with it, but experiences, that is where all wisdom begins to grow.
For one of these couples they have been dealing with health issues off and on for a few years but the end has come faster than they thought. There comes a point where medicine and science can only do so much and the human spirit begins to break down at the effort it takes to go on. It is never just the person with the disease that suffers, but perhaps, the person left alone at the end. They have to determine how to move forward when the end comes. They have to decide what life is going to be without that loved one. The fear in the fate of the future is sometimes larger than sky above.
The other couple had no advance warnings to prepare themselves for a sudden health concern that will consume their lives for the duration of it. Together they will have to completely change lifestyles and eating habits to help ensure that they can ave the life they had hoped for. Although they will most likely get the chance to do this together there is fear in the struggle that sits in front of them.
Watching these two couples wade through the waters that continue to throw rough surf and high tide at them when they want to lounge on the beach and bask in the sun makes me wonder if everything that has happened to me hasn’t somehow brought me more strength in the face of fear? At 37 who really questions not living long enough to watch their babies grow up? To see them graduate from kindergarten, grade school, high school, and college? I always planned to be at their weddings, births of babies, and celebrations of new adventures. In my mind there was no doubt that my husband and I would continue as we always had as a team that was focused on the future, our children, and each other. I knew I would see him gray and old and myself reflected in his eyes. Yet over the past year I have had to come to terms with the fact that this is not always the case.
Some of us get a lifetime with the family that we have created on this Earth while others get a quick breath of togetherness. Why? What makes one person’s life here so short while others get decades? It is frustrating to me that I can’t answer that question and in turn makes me frustrated with God. At the end of the day the fear of what may come is constant.
There are days that I feel no fear. Where I forget that cancer is a part of my life now. I will look at my kids playing and be overwhelmed by love for them and the moments I get to share them. I will see Scott walk in a room and feel my heart beat faster. I cherish these moments, and in them, I feel like my life will go on as I always thought it would...until I am old and gray. But there are days when fear sits at the forefront of my mind. Where I hide in the closet to calm down and wipe away tears so my children don’t take on this same fear in themselves. I have a desperateness inside me to never ever let this cancer grow again and realize that I have no control of it.
I am realizing more and more that our story is not always up to us to write. In my desperation there is also an overwhelming desire to just live in the moment. Each time I feel fearful I try to do something to center me again. Most days it is simply to reconnect with my husband and children. I find myself needing to touch them more. That small act helps me remember that I am alive and fortunate to be there with them because I know that not everyone has that opportunity.