Abstract
Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything it is because we are dangerously near wanting nothing.
Then, as sickness settles in, promises are made. We bargain, we cajole, we pray, we do whatever we can in the hope that health may return. 1 But such behavior rarely if ever works. Still, we hope—for a miracle, for a reprieve, for anything. And when our bodies betray us, a fear arises—a fear of uncertainty, a fear of suffering, a fear of loss, and a fear of death. This fear eats at our soul. We trust our bodies, and when their treason leaves us shaken and unsettled, we scurry to collect the remnants of life, all the while wanting for things to be as they were.
Such was with Pamela, the mother of my two daughters. She only wanted to be healthy, that's all. She never smoked, she never drank, and she exercised religiously—why did she have to get sick? And die? Scleroderma is a horrible disease, as if any disease is a good disease, but it took her life within a year of diagnosis. With kidneys failing, heart beating restlessly, left arm gangrenous, legs swollen, and eyes closed in a never-awakening sleep, she was suddenly gone—forever.
But before her death, there was a wanting, a deep, gut-wrenching wanting, although her suffering was unspoken. She never complained. Yet I know she wanted to be healthy, to toss aside the fury of disease. I also know her days were filled with terror, the joy of living abruptly strangled with disease. Her mind longed to have things like they were, when health was a daily anticipation. Instead, she was sucked into a world of chemotherapy, pacemakers, defibrillators, and just before death, days upon days in intensive care.
But I am also certain that her wanting slowly surrendered, supplanted by the grim reality of a life-threatening disease. Normalcy and good health were no longer obtainable or even accessible, even for a brief respite, and she knew it. 1 How frightening this must have been. And while we tried to be supportive, disease and death are truly lonely journeys, slapping us with the pain of mortality. Arrogance is nowhere to be found, only the thin air of humility.
And once wanting is gone, what is there? For many, when illness has tempered the battles of resistance, they concede to their plight and quietly write their memoirs in the debris of sickness. There is no time to think of wellness, only sickness. They humbly breathe their last breath, and close their eyes. Others relentlessly battle their disease, moving forward with chemicals and radiation that wrestle their rebellious DNA, but in the end, most arrive at their last breath far too soon—the pull of wanting blurred in the final moments of life.
Pamela's wanting seemed to crumble as her disease progressed, although she maintained a stoic and courageous presence. I so admired her bravery in the face of a merciless enemy, for she suffered tremendously. Did she want good health as she lay dying? I am certain she did. But I am also certain that she had moved on to dealing with the daily remnants of a horrible disease long before her death, realizing good health was a distant dream never to be realized. 1
Dedication
Dedicated to Pamela Rousseau who died October 17, 2006.