Tears and Laughter

On what is as close to as normal a day as possible in this life of mine, I can be going through the paces of preparing for a day of helping someone organize their home and WHAM! – I am suddenly skidding down an unwanted and increasingly familiar road of sadness, fear and despair.
On Friday morning after North went off to his chemo and radiation treatment I came out of the shower humming a song to myself. As I bent over to dry my hair my eyes took in a large quantity of dark hair (North’s) scattered across the bathroom floor. Suddenly I am crying, hard, and I just can’t seem to stop. What happened? I knew the radiation (not so much his type of chemo) was causing his hair to fall out.
I have been adjusting as best I can to the continuing changing look and feel of my beloved. I have watched daily as his facial swelling decreases and the radiation burns crack then heal then crack again. I’ve breathed through washing the blood stains from the pillowcases and stood next to him at the mirror as we both filled our fingers with hair and watched it fall into the sink. I’ve watched and listened as he struggles to understand, predict and care for the inside of his mouth; trying to manage the pain of a swollen and bleeding tongue to dealing with mucosa (gross increase of thick mucous - sorry to the squeamish!) and intense dry mouth. I’ve even stood there are cried as the sounds of his body rejecting whatever he put in it filled my ears and darkened my heart. And I have bore witness to the slow shrinking process of his entire body to a weight less than mine. Horrible? Yes! Frightening, upsetting, sad, lonely, angry, frustrated, confused and uncertain??? Yes! Yes! Yes!
And so I cried. I just cried and cried and cried some more. I tried to stop and found myself unable to. So I went about my business and drove to my clients house an hour late, still crying. What to do? Feeling such a loss of control in so many areas of my life was accentuated by the loss of the ability to stop my tears from flowing. SO… I called my dear friend and business partner Jenny, who was already busily working upstairs, and asked her to help me. She immediately came down and lovingly talked me through it. She reminded me how normal, natural and even healthy it was to let all those feelings out. She reminded me of what Marianne Williamson said in her talk last week about the importance of acknowledging the shadow side of our lives. (More on Marianne and her specific support of myself and North to come in my next blog). And so with the help of an open and caring heart, the tears slowed and eventually stopped. My breath came easier and low and behold, mountains of paperwork were successfully put into order for our client.
Then Saturday came. In a nutshell it will suffice to say that two dark and brooding lovers unable to connect on any level make for a gloomy kind of day. But, with the darkness came the courage to face it, together, and in doing so the light came in, brighter and stronger than ever.
One of the things I have most cherished about my relationship with North is our shared ability to have real, important, honest and very often perspective changing, if not life altering, conversations. Last night was no exception. Even with his limited ability to verbalize his thoughts without pain and my constantly saying, “What honey?”, we managed to find our way back together. But even more importantly we helped each other go to a deeper and more vulnerable place of dealing with this whole experience. We talked about how, underneath all the obvious fears we face, our shared deepest fear is that we might, through our avoidance, denial, stubbornness, terror or the obstinate strength of our old patterns, miss the grand opportunity to truly transform; to be deepened in our surrender to God/Spirit and life’s great mystery and our parts in it – and most of all to not allow this “crucifixion” of sorts, to be our salvation. More Christian based terminology than I usually use but it fits.
So we helped each other. I encouraged North to ask for help out loud to whatever or whoever might be listening, just waiting for an invitation. He teared up and said I was an angel with amnesia and my response to him was that I have not forgotten, and neither has he. We admitted to and explored the mysterious blocks we have both felt to pray directly for what we most want and to ask for help from our “invisible” support team. North expressed his unwillingness to see God as something outside of him, to view the creative power as not within but external. We talked about my both/and perspective and how I have found a way to recognize my own Divinity while also recognizing a power greater than my human conscious mind can fully comprehend. I am part of it, integral, capable and perfectly created; but human and prone to forget, and to believe the ways of this physical world are more powerful than I, more powerful than God.
The biggest and most important Truth is that North and I long to let our lights shine into the lives of others in ways that help, heal, support, strengthen and transform. We share a dream of writing books, facilitating support groups and workshops and making a positive difference in this world as our primary focus and way we spend our time. From the beginning of our journey together there has been a dream of combining our talents and living a shared life of purpose and meaning. And so, as we asked for help, for courage, for faith, we got it. We found ourselves talking about the title of the book(s) and empowering patients or anyone going through crisis of big change. We got excited about the people we will meet and the places we will go and our dream of having homes both here and in the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee.
And before we went to bed we laughed, a lot. The new anti-nausea drug, Marinol, might have helped a bit. It has THC from marijuana in it so North said, “Honey, you and Marinol make a Divine cocktail!” He danced a little jig in the kitchen, telling me of his relief and happiness about our conversation and how much better he felt and how grateful he is for having me in his life. He said I was beautiful and started singing “We’ve got High Hopes! High Hopes! (Sing it with us now!) “High in the Sky, Apple Pie Hopes!”
What a relief… to face the dark head on and with love so strong. To find our way through it together and be on the other side with renewed hope and excitement and laughter... blessed laughter. Thank you God. Thank you everything and everyone who loves, supports and inspires us to be all we can be. I am SO grateful and we are so blessed. Life is good. And so it is!
Namaste’
Stef