I have a lot to be thankful for this year. The thing that I am foremost thank for: To love and be loved by someone so completely and absolutely.
The events of the past year (and a half) since the time of Katie’s diagnosis have heightened my awareness and appreciation of that love. But there have been many times in the months that have passed where gratitude was lost in me. Since that summer of 2014, when this whole terrifying journey began, there has been a competing dualism that has existed within me.
The first is the realm of appreciation. In this realm I am so grateful for caring and competent doctors and nurses, for health insurance, for effective treatments and medicines, and for the access to all these things. In this realm I actively appreciate the outpouring of love and support bestowed upon us from family and friends. The cards, the donations, the calls, the visits, the gifts, the meals. In this realm I am acutely grateful for the dear family and close friends, who rather than shy away from our pain and difficulty, entered into it firmly and fully. Sharing in and supporting us through the shock, confusion, terror, and anger as well as the relief, joy, gratitude, and love. It is the realm of a desperate appreciation for the person to whom I have joined my life. A humbling gratitude for the astounding opportunity to have encountered this woman and to share each day of my life with her since. A terrifying gratitude that although I may lose her, and that our shared life be finished far too soon, I would still be the most fortunate person on earth to have shared these six years of life with her. Needless to say, I cherish this realm. It is the realm that I continually pursue. But it sometimes seems to elude me.
The second realm is one of resentment. In this realm I experience the bile toward the unimaginable cruelty of life, the chaos of chance and the curse of misfortune. I feel the rage and hatred of how someone so completely good and lovely must be subjected to circumstances so painful and disillusioning. In this realm I am choked by anxiety and gripped with fear, stuck in the quicksand of rumination and worry. Here, I am embittered by incompetent physicians, missed diagnoses. In this realm of resentment I see the blessings of my life as curses: opportunities for the randomness and brutality of life to bequeath a continuing succession of pain and loss. In this arena I boil with animus toward those who dare complain of trifle and frivolous misfortunes like they’re catastrophes: of bad traffic and a weak WiFi signal. I secretly stew in acrimony and jealousy for those who appear to have perfectly predictable lives, who have never been visited by calamity, whose plans always come to fruition. In this place I dwell in pessimism and cynicism. Needless to say I hate this realm. It is the realm that pursues me. As I continually endeavor to elude it.
There is a certain reality of this dualism that I have failed to mention to this point. Which is that it seems this dualism is not so strictly dichotomous as perhaps it should be. And also that this dualism is not always competing realities that are constantly in direct confrontation with each other--though this is surely sometimes the case. The truth is that these two realms are to each other as light is to darkness. A darkness that would otherwise be invisible is revealed by the brilliance of the light. And the light would not be experienced as light were there no darkness to reveal its luminosity.
In the spirit of this time, I am reminded to feed the realm of light: appreciation and gratitude. So in consideration of Thanksgiving, please accept this exercise in gratitude:
Thank you to all of those who have loved and supported Katie and me over the turbulent year past. Thank you for all the ways you illustrated this love to us: for showing up, for calling, for cards, for gifts, for donations, for heartfelt words of kindness and encouragement, for positive thoughts, for prayers, for meals, for favors, for making us laugh. Thank you for never allowing us to forget how loved we are. Thank you for never allowing us to forget that we have not and are not going through this alone. Thank you for not allowing us, especially me, to believe that nobody cares.
The remnants of your love and kindness continue to surround us. They are imbued into the very atoms of our bodies and the molecules of our memories.
All the lost tread on tires and gas guzzled to get to us or take us places.
A whole, big carbon footprint of love.
Pictures on walls, in frames, and in our phones.
A museum of texts.
A dossier of calls.
A wall of cards.
A mountain of words.
Receipts from Au Bon Pain.
Gift cards to Subway
A bottle of whiskey (now empty).
A truckload of food (now eaten).
Frayed nerves, tearstained cheeks, and snotty noses.
Handknit caps to keep our heads warm (especially Katie’s when it was bald).
Lost income.
So many Netflix movies.
Shared memories.
Hug residue.
These are just a few of the things that bear witness to the love and support we received. The evidence of your kindness.
Thank you.
