Time Runs Out
I recently had a complete and utter overreaction, and I lost my mind on Ty.
On a Sunday in early January, I took down our Christmas decorations. I pulled the ornaments down, wrapped them in tissue, and nestled them inside the big green plastic tubs where they live for 11 months out of the year. The following week was an extra-busy one; nightly basketball games brought us home late and exhausted. It had been over a week, and I realized that I was still walking past those big green bins.
I had a job: take the decorations down. Ty had a job: put them up in the attic. I had some words. He had some words. None of our words went well.
I need to pause here and explain one critical piece: Ty had moved the tubs into the garage. They were out of the living room. They just weren’t yet in the attic. And that was the crux of our words and my mental undoing: He hadn’t done it the way I wanted.
Why am I so angry about this? I asked a friend. Why all this unrest and bitterness about the tubs of Christmas ornaments?
This isn’t about Christmas ornaments, Sarah. You know that. Your heart is anxious because you want to know that if something happens to you—if you die—Ty will be able to do this. Christmas ornaments were just the catalyst.
She’s right. It wasn’t about Christmas ornaments. It was actually about death.
I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of leaving.
There’s a difference.
———
I’ve mentioned before that when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, a friend sent me a bunch of pages in the mail. It was an article (actually, a short book) written by John Piper called, Don’t Waste Your Cancer. The sender was less than a year ahead of me in the breast cancer journey. She handwrote on the top: “For when you’re ready.”
It was filled with 10 bricks of heavy-hitting sentiments, such as:
-You’ll waste your cancer if you do not believe it was designed for you by God
-You’ll waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God
-You’ll waste your cancer if you grieve as one who has no hope
It could seem a bit obtuse; these grand, pie-in-the-sky proclamations, until you discover that Piper wrote these words on the eve of his own prostate cancer surgery.
Suddenly, the words have more gravitas. I lean in. I listen.
You’ll waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.
———
I’ve had this blog post stewing in my mind for a really long time, but I wasn’t ready to write it. I feel safer now, like maybe, just maybe, I escaped with my life for good this time. And now that I’m not facing my own impending departure, I think I’m ready to write about death as one who feels a bit like she’s brushed shoulders with it.
I’d like to tell you what I see.
———
Some friends flew to Houston to visit while I was having radiation treatment there. One evening after dinner, the six of us sat around my apartment talking. David asked an open question, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
The answers ran the gamut from trying new experiences to living in new places to opening up to new emotions. We laughed, and we prodded, and we dug deeper.
Everyone else had answered, yet I was blank.
I don’t know, I said as I looked around the circle. I repeated the question: What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?
My eyes welled up, and my lip trembled as I admitted:
I don’t know why I can’t answer this, but I think that this is a question about the future, and I’m honestly not sure that I have one.
———
When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I prayed for 40 more years. Then things changed, and cancer was back again so quickly after my mastectomy, and I learned the statistics about my new diagnosis of Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC). I bumped it down to 20 years. It is all about the kids: I told God that I want to be here for high school graduations, college graduations, marriages. I want to hold my grandbabies and babysit them. And Eden is only 4, so it will be about 20 years before those milestones are even possible for her.
Then I learned that if an IBC patient can go five years with No Evidence of Disease (NED), there is a good chance that it will never come back. But it’s a double-edged sword: the chances of making it those first five years isn’t high.
So, now I pray for five years of NED and 40 more years after that, because why settle?
———
A few nights ago, Nell’s school celebrated 8th Grade night for basketball. Each 8th-grade player was announced and was walked out onto the court by their parents. Ty and I proudly walked Nell over to stand in our place together on the sideline.
I am not a sports mom. I should honestly probably care a little more. But there I was, on the side of the basketball court, feeling emotions rise up and tears sting at my eyes.
I’m HERE. It’s a milestone, and I am here for it.
I could barely keep it together.
———
This week, the high school girls and Ty were at a basketball game far away, so Eden and I had “Eden-Mommy Night” at home. We turned on the music in the kitchen, sat at the table, and colored together for a long time. Then we played a matching game. We made a light supper and ate it side by side at the kitchen counter, our legs bumping into one another. We talked about the letters G and H because she’s learning those at school this week. We got into our pajamas together and read library books before bed, snuggled into the sofa with Margie Sparkles chewing a toy and sharing the blanket with us.
You know, when you’re paying attention, regular old life can be simply magical.
———
Upon leaving MD Anderson, I had a follow-up visit with my Oncologist. I asked her what I’d be looking for in terms of recurrence. With your history, she said, I’d say it would come back right outside your scar lines. Keep an eye on the skin around your scars.
That was mid-December. I noticed a bright red bump on my left breast scar line about two weeks ago. Panic rose up. I showed Ty. We worried.… I could barely say it aloud. I sent a picture to my medical team in Houston. This requires further evaluation, they responded. Can you get in to see your local Oncologist this week?
I’ll spare you the grueling wait and just let you know that—hallelujah!—it turned out to be nothing, some kind of skin irritation that was entirely gone within a few more days. But the fear, the waiting, the tossing and turning, the anxious thoughts… those were all very real.
I sat in my Oncologist’s office. You know it’s going to be a Five Alarm Fire every time I see a bump on my chest, I said. For the rest of my life: bug bite, zit, scar, or cancer? That will be my question.
He turned to look at me. As it should be, he responded.
———
When Breath Becomes Air is a memoir written by Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanthi. He wrote poignantly about his life and illness, battling stage IV metastatic lung cancer. The book was published posthumously by his wife. He wrote it while he knew he was dying. Much of the book is about facing death—the choices you make when alive, but death is camped out on your shoulder. Or in your lungs. Or on your chest.
Dr. Kalanthi wrote I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.
The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.
———
I’ve always said that owning our own small business for almost two decades has just made me more aware of how dependent I am on God. Yes, you too would say you’re dependent on God, perhaps, but until you have been in a place where you are hanging on him for every single paycheck, you don’t really know it in the same way. We are all in the same boat; I just became more aware of it.
I know of two people who died very unexpectedly in the last week. One of them was a young grandfather, and the other was 38 years old, a wonderful husband and father to two teenagers.
Life is fragile. We are all in the same boat. Some of us are just more aware of it.
———
I mulled over this emotional firestorm that was happening in my heart over the Christmas ornaments, and I called my dear friend Kristie, who met me for a cup of coffee. She is a wise friend and always so good at getting to the heart of an issue. After I hashed out my anger that had turned to fear that had turned to reflective questioning, she looked at me from across the table and said:
Do you trust God, Sarah? Do you trust that He loves your girls and Ty more than you do? Do you trust that He will give them what they need if you’re not here?
Maybe the question isn’t: Do I trust Ty to do this without me?
The question is: Do I trust God to do this without me?
When it all boils down: Do I trust God more than I trust myself?
And I’ve got to tell you: it’s a doozy. That one’s a doozy.
———
In the final words of the article mentioned above, Don’t Waste Your Cancer, Piper writes,
At this time (five years after my surgery) the evidence is that they “got it.” But I have learned that one day we think we are well, and the next day we find out we are not. So now when people ask me, “How’s your health?” I say, “I feel fine. And the doctors are pleased.” Which, being translated, means: “I don’t know how I am; only God knows.”
That God knows, and cares, and rules, is enough.
———
Yeah, I’ve brushed shoulders with death, and I don’t know that I’m done with him yet. But what I’ve seen from my encounter is that life is magical when you’re paying attention, that every milestone now has more meaning, and that I’m still learning to trust God more than I trust myself.
But for now: That God knows, and cares, and rules, is enough.
