I wanted to talk about this last night but I had a raging headache, maybe a little bug? Anyway, the topic was important so I waited to try to do it justice…
The topic is bravery.
A very kind male nurse — an orthodox Jew with a thick, heavy, black beard — came to the house yesterday to remove Ken’s chemo pump. We were talking, as strangers do, about nothing in particular, when Ken interrupted to say that the cancer makes it impossible to be brave.
I had to disagree.
Bravery is putting one foot in front of the other, even when you are so sad and tired and sick that you just want to crumble. Bravery is going to your chemo appointments to be injected with substances so dangerous your care team has to suit up to handle the infusion bags. It’s being irradiated every day for weeks. It’s talking to your doctors about your “options” and looking at your test results. It’s asking for the facts, even the truths you don’t want to hear. It’s accepting your diagnosis but refusing to let it define you.
My eldest is so good at talking to his dad when Ken’s stressed. My youngest joins enthusiastically whatever activities appeal to his dad — flying foam airplanes, throwing parachutes out the window, launching little rockets. My daughter teases and jokes with her dad, sometimes actually making him laugh.
These are examples of bravery too.
The nurse agreed with me and as he left yesterday, he wished us “hope.” He said that was the strongest prayer he could offer us.
Hope is brave too ….
Deb,
Ken’s courage, and the courage of you and your children are both explicit and implicit in every sentence you have written. I could never have been so courageous as to write what you have written. Your entry tonight was a perfect summary.
And…you have brought to my mind my brother’s and my parents’ courage in the face of inevitable, unavoidable, and overwhelming fear and pain. My father singing an Italian song after we were told all treatments had failed; Curtis facing his fear of death and his avowal of hope, ” I’m just not going to be afraid anymore, Daddy. I’m going to take my vitamins and get strong. And if God need me to die, then I’ll just do it– like it’s my job.” He was gone by morning. My mother living paralyzed 8 years in nursing home, and telling me her favorite song was Louis Armstrong’s’ ‘It’s a Wonderful World’, and really meaning it.
Somehow we feel compelled to define ourselves by our lowest moments, the moments of overwhelming fear and despair. Moments that seem to swallow whole our strength and courage and dignity. We are not so defined. I used to think that if even Jesus cried in a garden and felt wholly forsaken on the cross, then it was not possible for such moments to detract from the courage it took to live each day, to hunt for joy, to…endure physically, and to strive spiritually.
Okay, I know this is trite, but you put me in mind of Game of Thrones quote.
Bran thought about it. ‘Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?’
‘That is the only time a man can be brave,’ his father told him.
George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Deb, it’s another Deb here – Deb in Scotland whose wedding in PA you all were kind enough to attend 🙂 Ken shared the link to your blog a while back and now and then I come to see how things are going in your words, while we continue to read and comment to him as well online. I just wanted to say that Gordon and I are here, our thoughts never far from all of you. You wrote so eloquently about bravery, and so exactly right and true in what it means to be brave, both for the person who is ill and for the people who love them.
There’s a picture I have as a Facebook ‘banner’ which is a drawing of a tiny girl looking with a cheeky smile at a bent, spiky, toothy demon. The caption reads: “You wake up every morning to fight the same demons that left you so tired the night before and that, my love, is bravery.” I use that banner when Gordon is going through kidney failure hell and dialysis hell, or when I am feeling like I’m not sure I can continue to cope. But there is no choice in the matter… we go on. We endure.
It doesn’t feel like bravery because there’s not really a choice in it. But I know that it somehow is brave, and that it’s what we hold on to, tightly, no matter what.
Bravery is defiance in the face of it all, but bravery is also silent endurance in the still hours before dawn.
We both send you love.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh Deb. I am so sad for the news in these two posts. You are all so incredibly brave. I will continue to hope for you all to find strength and peace in all that you are facing.
“Courage is found in unlikely places.” -J.R.R. Tolkien
LikeLiked by 1 person
Deb…once again I have no words. My heart just aches for Ken and all of you. It’s amazing you’re able to so eloquently provide these updates. God Bless. 💚🙇👭
LikeLiked by 1 person