Anything else?

What a week. Not that I've been super active, but life just keeps coming. And what I keep thinking about is why do things have to be so hard for people? The tsunami and 8.5 earthquake in Japan really got me going there. While watching it happen on the tv screen, and imagining what those people on the other side of the world were going through, I thought, what if it happened here, now? Especially a few days ago, I felt particularly vulnerable. My left arm aching and feeling like the skin is burned. My chest burning and pinching and indescribable, really. My fuzzy brain from pain and fatigue and pain meds and accepting the person in the mirror is me. I thought, what the Hell would I do if a major catastrophe happened and I was weak like this? And what about the people over there who just came home from hospital? How are they coping?

People always say God doesn't give you more than you can handle. And actually, though it's a lovely sentiment, it's not really true, is it? Otherwise people wouldn't crack and they wouldn't die. But besides that common sense proof, in my Bible study we've just talked about specific verses that say He does allow too much to hit us sometimes. (btw the verse that says he doesn't allow too much is about temptation. He doesn't allow more temptation than we can handle. In this, He always gives us a choice.) But He does, and will, allow "surpassing" circumstances that can land us in deep despair. I think this is where we are supposed to find comfort in Him, and in the knowledge this world is not our home. Doesn't always work, does it? And it's not always easy to say that to someone who's going through tough times, is it? (Unless you're really in tip-top shape and can duck really fast to avoid being clocked by the pots and pans and rocks being flung at your head in response. :-))

To be honest, those things do bring me comfort. For years I've thought, terrible things will happen and I'd rather be with God during those times than alone and hopeless. It brings me peace, even in the midst of sadness.

We watched a really low-budget movie the other night, not so entertaining, but the message stuck in my brain and keeps popping up while I struggle through trying to make sense of this world. Something about the grape vine becoming stronger when faced with harsh climates and stress. That's us too, isn't it? Isn't life just full of these metaphors? Like the caterpillar, who must beat its wings against its cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly who can fly away (and live for a whole day. Sarcasm. The lowest form of humor. I digress. Where was I? Oh yes. The caterpillar.) If we help it out of its cocoon, it is a mangled mess, doomed to death without ever having known flight.

Ok, so I'm thinking life comes at us to make us stronger. I know this is true. And who doesn't want to be strong? But still. Tsunamis, and earthquakes, and cancer, oh my.

I'm doing ok with my diagnosis. But this surgery thing has me so upset. I can't function without help, and that makes me so frustrated. I can't fill up my dogs' water bowls. I can't wear any shirt I can't step into. I can't sleep in any position except on my back. I can't sweep. Can't do any sort of exercise unless I'm holding my left arm with my right. And I feel guilty for being upset by these things because a freakin earthquake and tsunami just destroyed thousands of lives across the sea from here.

And then the icing on the cake. My mom has been suffering with severe pain in her hip, sometimes, her shoulder, back and forth and worse and better for a long while now. Of course she got the standard diagnosis. Arthritis. (Isn't arthritis the catch all?!) And maybe she does have a little arthritis. But that is not all, as it turns out. My mom is a two-time breast cancer survivor of two different types of breast cancer. The second go round, she went for the big surgery and thought she was home free after nine years being cancer free. But this pain thing...She knew it had to be something more than arthritis because the pain came and went and was at times disabling. She went in for tests, unbeknownst to me because, understandably, no one wanted to tell me. Who wants to stress out someone who's already struggling under the weight of her own cross? But when the results came in, she shared. Breast cancer is back. Nine years later. Here's the deal, for those of you who don't know (which would've included me a few months ago!) If breast cancer metastisizes somewhere else in your body, it's still considered breast cancer. So mom has breast cancer in her spine at her neck, and at her sacrum. Totally treatable, the experts believe, with radiation, followed by five years of meds.

This latter bit scares me the most. My mom does not like medicine. She quit the tamoxifen years ago because it was making her feel like an alien in her own body. I understand this! But I want to tell her that's not an option this time. And so excuse me while I tell her: Mommy, that's not an option this time. I will do what I have to do, and I need you to do the same.

God, are you strengthening us again?

Ok, so lastly. I had this dream about Allie. I won't bore you with all the details, but, in it, she was singing and playing an organ of some sort. Beside her sat her roommate, Christina, who happens to be in a band in real life, and she was also singing and playing piano. A young man sat a little further down, playing percussion or something like that. Also singing. I tried to focus on them all, but couldn't. Their faces were so blurry, it was like looking through warbled glass, or, in reality, through my own eyes because the steroids have destroyed my vision. (It may or may not come back.) I said to myself (because I wasn't in the room in my dream, I was just able to "see" and hear everything happening--like the ghost of future) "They're making music! So that's how it's done! And I didn't even know Allie could play an instrument!"

What does it mean, you ask? I'll tell you my take. None of us can "see" into the future. The future will always be unclear because life happens and we never know what's coming. But day by day, second by second, even if we don't know it, we are playing our instruments and singing our songs. We can make a beautiful song. A symphony, in fact! We may not know it, but as we live our lives, as our lives come into contact with other's lives, whether like symbols clashing or voices lifted in harmonies, we are making a song. We can make beautiful music today, regardless of what tomorrow may bring.

Oh, let it be beautiful. No matter what, keep making your music, and raising your voices in song. Let someone say about you, Oh, I didn't know her voice was so beautiful, or, I didn't know he could play an instrument. We can't see into the future, but we will eventually be able to look back. The further away we get, the clearer the song of our lives will ring. And if we are lucky, we will get to know why we carried this load or that, and we will say, I'm glad I faced that. I'm glad for the person I became. And if we are very lucky, people will say, I'm glad for knowing you. I loved your song.