you too are stronger than you think

There are two things we hear a lot:

1.  You guys are so strong…I don’t know how you do it…You handle this with such grace.  Etc.

and

2.  It’s just not fair.  This shouldn’t have happened to you.

To number one I want to say this:  I truly believe you would do the same thing.  We have no super powers.  When you wake up the day after a doctor has said “you have cancer” and your life is forever changed, you have no choice but to eventually get out of bed.  I mean you can only stay there surfing endlessly through Netflix movies for so many hours before the kids want to be fed or the cat litter stench becomes so overpowering you find yourself thinking about that more than cancer or your concerned friends come over and threaten some kind of energetic cleansing ceremony that you really don’t have energy for.

Until the moment someone is actually dying, there is stuff to do.  Someone probably still has to work, and everyone needs to eat, and the toilet gets used (probably more often, if feeling scared scares sh*t out of you) and so needs extra cleaning, and there will be more appointments than you can ever imagine and all that driving will mean your car needs some kind of maintenance and if you have kids they’ll be needier than ever and at the end of the day there will be like 248 emails and texts to return.  (For the record, in the moment I am actually dying, my to-do list will be wiped clean so as to not distract me from the task at hand, and don’t plan anything otherwise or I’ll haunt you forever.)
But seriously, you’ll get up and put food on the table (there is no shame in popcorn for dinner) and you’ll take the compost out when someone finally says “what the heck is that smell?”.  You just will.  You don’t really have a choice.

If there is any “secret” to our strength it might be this:
I think by nature we are both wired to, most often, default to hope and wonder, not depression and darkness.  I know that’s not everyone’s story and we see our privileges clearly.  We also don’t hesitate to employ drugs (think prozac) and therapy and any other support we can think of (massage, wine, exercise, chocolate, mindless movies etc.)  You can do this too.

I also think we’ve made a conscious choice to proceed through the days (months, years) following that dreadful news with a kind of purpose.  A purpose to keep loving each other and being as kind as we possibly can and to keep finding joy in each moment. 

When your heartbreak comes, know that you will get up and put one foot in front of the other.  Not every day, but enough.

Thank you for thinking we are strong.  We are.  And so are you.

Which leads me to number two, the “it’s not fair, and why aren’t you angry” sort of comment.  Here’s the deal.  17 totally innocent kids just got shot in a school 42 miles from our home here in Florida and their families are grieving in a way no one should ever have to grieve.  And everyday that we drive to the clinic we see sad, slumped bodies lying in dirty bedding under the overpass.  People with their entire world packed up in a stolen shopping cart who have hopes and dreams and probably children, or at least parents, some where in the world.  And we just read an amazing kids book (Refugee, check it out in the sidebar) that follows the based-on-true stories of three refugee children from Germany, Cuba and Syria. And these people live war, and starvation and terror every day for years on end and there is nothing they can do but try and run for their lives.

We aren’t angry about Andy’s cancer because everyone has something.  Suffering is universal.  Some people have to suffer their entire lives.  Some of us never find love.  Some of us can’t forgive our parents.  Some of us work ourselves to death.  Some of us die of starvation.  Starvation!

This gives us some perspective. Andy has cancer and it’s terrible and scary and heartbreaking.  But we still laugh with the kids and drink coffee in the morning and watch the parrots fly over in the beautiful blue Florida sky.  We have resources enough to take them to rent rollerblades and eat McDonalds (ok, we have resources enough to feed them better than McDonalds, but what the hell, it was only once, I swear). We still see the kindness in others and feel really psyched when a stranger makes room for us to merge into the long line of traffic on the interstate on-ramp.

These things are important and worth noticing.  They make up the beautiful moments of our days.  In my opinion they are worth spending more time with than our little thoughts about why someone can’t put the butter knife in the sink instead of leaving it stuck to the counter, or who took up two freaking parking spaces in the completely crammed parking lot at Whole Foods.  C’mon guys, let’s all settle down a little bit and remember:  Be Kind.  Everyone you meet is fighting a battle.
It may be cliche, overdone, and found on cute little signs sold at TJ Maxx.  But still.

This week Andy got pulled off the trial drugs, again.  He had an echocardiogram which showed a decrease in his heart function and since we aren’t sure if it’s the drugs causing that or the crazy tumor next to his heart, he had to stop taking them until further testing can determine what the heck is going on.  Up, down, up, down… and we wait. In the meantime we plan to go check out some birds at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and probably eat some junky food and look for cool shells on the beach.  And if you look at us you won’t know that our hearts are breaking because we are still noticing all the beauty in the world and it makes us smile.