I have tried in vain, but sleep eludes me. Ignatia has failed me tonight. I think the miasma of unreality is beginning to clear, and the stark truth of my future is beginning to glare at me. I have spilled out the diagnosis to my dearest darlings, and have wept until my eyes are dry and now that I am nothing more than a limp rag, wrung out of all feelings, all thoughts I begin to see that it is only the beginning. The telling is only the beginning of the pain I will inflict on my freinds and family. Now they will watch me sink into sickness and pain, while standing nearby wishing to to take it all away and whisk me to safety. “Life is pain, Highness.” Wesley says to Buttercup. “Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something.” But my goal has aways been to avoid pain…to tread carefully lest I hurt someone unknowingly. I’m the one who doles out the tissues, administers the hugs, cooks the meals, tends to the sick. I soothe the pain. I don’t inflict it. And yet here I am. Life is pain, Princess.
I know that hope looms on the horizon, and light can shine in the darkest places… and all that BUT when I turn out the light, and writhe on my sleepless bed, I’m just tired. And I can’t help imagining the horrors to come. And it is only the beginning. And can I be brave enough? Can I? When Lois lay dying from the cancer that ate away her lungs, she said, “I just don’t want to be a pansy.” I don’t want to be a pansy either. A coward. A whiner. I don’t want to sap every ounce of strength from my friends, and turn them into blithering idiots who exert all of their internal fortitude bolstering me up, and are left depleted.
I told God that I’m willing to walk down the dark path with Him… but now I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I can walk down that path bringing all my loved ones along. Psalm 16 begins,” I love the Lord, for He heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live.” Yes. Life IS pain, BUT the Lord is “gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.”