The Beginning, the End, THEN the Middle

Back in the day when I worked a real job and went to see those motivational speakers organizations always enlist to help "energize" the troops, I saw a woman speaker who carried around two pictures of her son. She would talk about how if only you could know the end, it would make the middle so much easier. The first photo showed a boy with a guitar and a complete 70's, early 80's punk outfit, black clothes, zippers, chains, makeup, piercings and everything. The "now" photo showed a proud man in a military officer uniform. I always read the first couple chapters of a book, then the last--my justification is so that I know what to read for and I can see if the author makes any mistakes. Of course they really don't, that's what editors are for, but I just have to know.

Tonight, I really f$%^ed up. Excuse the profanity, but when it's big, it's just big and Stephen King says you are supposed to write like normal people would speak and I didn't just "make a mistake." I was excited to escape and read a piece of fluffy teen lit--The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants--so I suspended "the rule" and just read from beginning to end and now I can't sleep. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT A 12-YEAR-OLD GIRL DIES OF LEUKEMIA? Sorry if that just spoiled it for anyone, but I think it's best to be prepared for things like that! Like I was told the movie It's a Beautiful Life was a wonderful love story. THE MAIN CHARACTERS ALL DIE IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS--not a great love story. Pay it Forward is not a heartwarming story about helping your neighbors--it's about a KID WHO DIES! Things like that are just plain sad and to a person in a fragile emotional state, they can be downright devastating--you can not spoil a sad ending, people need to be prepared. Why do they feel it is important to warn people there is sex or violence, drug use, or profanity? Profanity, really, who needs to be warned about profanity--how can a person be more offended by a few f-bombs than the sad and random expiration of a precious life?

So now, two nights in a row I am up in the middle of the night. Before this journey began, I could probably count on my fingers the numbers of times I have faced insomnia, but lately I spend a lot of time awake in the quiet time. While we still have no written report, we did get a phone call tonight that the doctors at MSK are not recommending any additional treatment at this time. They recommend we watch and wait, then treat any potential recurrence. So, here we are stuck in the middle and that terribly uncertain sentence feels like the worst punishment of all. Give me stress and deadlines and crises and I can function, even thrive if it's work related. Give me someone else's tragedy or pain and I can make the best of it and help them through, but stick ME in the middle of something scary and I don't even know what to do. Of course I never knew that about myself before, but now I do, I just plain suck at it. How can you feel angry and scared and helpless and frustrated, depressed and manic all at the same time and not explode? Well, apparently, I can't, so I read the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and cried, and cried and cried, without really knowing why.

I cried for all the brave little people like Bailey and Bo who face death with no fear. Bo told Jay that he isn't afraid to die, but he doesn't want to die with tubes in him. I cried in relief that at least right now, Bo won't have to face chemo. I cried in fear that by not treating him, there is cancer roaming around in his little body searching for the next best places to relocate--his kidneys, his brain, his spinal cord? I cried in frustration that maybe we STILL don't have the right answer and we should look harder. I cried in anger that we spend more money building technology to blow stuff up than we do trying to save and build people. I cried in helplessness because no matter how much I cry, there is nothing else I can do to write his ending the way I WANT IT, and that no matter how happy, ordinary or painful it is, we have to read the whole book, no skipping ahead. So after I write this, I will go to sleep and I will wake tomorrow and start living our new life. And we will not live in in the shadow of cancer. Since we can't know the ending, we will enjoy it, like a good book, savor and love every minute of it, and take in all the good stuff, so the sadness pales in comparison to the happiness. Sleep well, always sleep well, so you can take full advantage of every day.