It Hit Me Like a Slow Bullet, Took Me Some Time to Recognize It.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
--Frank Herbert
--Frank Herbert
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
--Marie Curie
How do you live in such a state without becoming fear's doppelgänger? I don't have the courage of Virgil or Bilbo Baggins when the darkness surrounds me. Even at a young age I was a coward. I remember my sister Jane comforting me when I was convinced the Count, yes from Sesame Street, was in a dark corner of my room. In fairness, these were the days that a 2 or 3 year old was allowed to watch Dark Shadows--the episode I remember scarred me for life. Dolls came alive, and I have never trusted a doll bigger than a Barbie again.
That is all light-hearted. But none of this is. Real life is heavy, rife with terrors, whether night or day. How will I shepherd my children through this loss? How? What will they do without the center of their world, lost so soon in their young lives? How will I wake and face the day knowing she isn't here to provide them with comfort and succor? And I--despite all of my bitterness, despite the rejection, despite the betrayal, despite the lying, the philandering, the gaslighting--have loved this woman for more years that I've been on this earth than not. My world, our world, doesn't make sense when I try and imagine it without her being in it. This doesn't mean I wouldn't leave her if by some miracle of science she went into remission. Far from it. But, as I cast aside, for now, my bitterness and hurt, I recognize that our love will and does endure. It is, in the end, why I stay and attend to her needs, because I need to do it, not just for the children, but for my very soul. I would not be able to live with myself if I left her in this terrible time. Even when I moved out in January, the plan was to move out so I could disentangle from this relationship, to separate with the understanding that I am not leaving, but coming back when I have sorted it all out. And even then, I came back each morning and stayed into the evening caring for her.
The gestalt, the integrated parts of our lives makes it incredibly difficult to handle the emotional impact of a terminal illness concomitant with that of a 3.5 year affair. I am doing my damndest to do it, but it is not easy. It is never easy. As a kid, Jenny grew up believing that everything in life is supposed to be fair--that is why, I would posit-- she has had such trouble when she sees the cognitive dissonance that is created just living in the real world. I, on the other hand, learned very early, earlier than one should, that as my sister Catherine said to me over and again when I was a grade schooler, "Life's a bitch and then you die." Truer words were never spoken. That isn't resignation--we should always rage against the bitch, try and chain her up, and starve her so she doesn't bite too hard. Nor is it acceptance. It is recognition. This is all to say that I am keeping the disappointment at bay, and focusing on the moments as they happen. I believe that I can be, if not content, at least not suffering. If we can keep the peace and offer Jenny shelter from the storm, that is everything to me. I want, if these are the final months of her life, to make sure she can find some respite, some small measure of happiness. I just don't want it to be at the expense of the kids.
Acting is Up
Abby finished the YTN run of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare Sunday afternoon. Afterward, the kids all went to downtown Mercer Island, such as it is, to hang out. Leiney took Abby and retrieved her, while Kim and Jenny were out shopping for Abby's birthday. Me, I sat on my duff, in solitude, hoping the 90 percent abatement of the dizziness held. It did. The headache is still here--but on the bright side it isn't a migraine. So, there's that.
She has a gift for acting, Abby does, and more broadly, a gift for everything she does. She can sing, play guitar, writes well, has an artist's eye for painting and photography. She is talented, driven, and works hard in a way I never did at her age. She always knows everyone else's part in any show she performs in, and that has been true for 13 years. She has a genuine presence on the stage. I don't know if she understands clearly how unique it is to have such bounty.
Monday, March 29, 2021
Jenny was supposed to take Kim snowshoeing today, not sure if they will go now. Jenny, who went to bed at 11 last night and slept, with one brief interlude for English muffins and hot chocolate I made for her, until just after 11 this morning. Its 11:15 now. Seeing unusual deviations from pattern scare me. This is a deviation. It's likely she slept so hard and was incredibly spacey as a result of upping her dosage of Rick Simpson oil last night. That, I hope explains it. Coupled with the THC and other meds, it is a likely explanation. I just don't know. And that is what drives all this reading on pancreatic cancer, trying to understand the import of deviations from the mean. I have no medical background. Worse than that, I know nothing really more than the worst informed layman.
We spend such paltry sums on research. For instance, Congress awarded the DoD $6000000 to study PDAC in 2020, 15 million in 2021. Meanwhile, 2017 expenditures, the latest numbers I found, for weapons R&D in the US, according to the government's Congressional Research Service? $55,441,000,000. ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME. We spend billions, trillions on perfecting killing. and a pittance on saving lives. Sigh.
If we are lucky, we live long enough with a partner to lose that partner in old age. That, in itself, is hell. To never be born would mean never experiencing the elation and the devastation that life brings. Who can argue that a first love, a first kiss, a winning lottery ticket is worth living through the loss of a mother, a father, a child, a spouse? For the cost of such happiness is always just around the corner. Tomorrow is never promised, nor is happiness, but suffering is guaranteed.
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