I go to NIH every few months for check-ups or to pick-up more medicine. Each time without fail, I make new friends. You don't end up at NIH for funzies. You end up there because you have exhausted many, many options. So there is a shorthand, a camaraderie when you meet someone who has the "extended visitor badge". You know they are a warrior and they know you are one too.
Every one of us has a story. A heartbreaking, heart wrenching story, and when you are battle weary you often can let your armor down and share. A deep, personal and very honest exchange. I always leave these encounters better than before, with new friends to pray for, new medical challenges to understand. I never leave these encounters without understanding the power of a hug and the ability of one stranger to comfort another.
When you have a difficult diagnosis, you learn you are in the desert, wandering without water, with a blistering sunburn, cracked bloody lips. You are alone, isolated, scared, hot and in desperate need of an oasis. I've been there. Like Christ, alone in the desert.
The desert is the worst... and when you visit hospitals, doctors offices, and places like NIH, you quickly realize there are two types of desert people. Joyful people and White Knucklers.
In the desert, you quickly realize that you have two options; to give in, or to face your fears, find your faith, and meet the best part of yourself. This person is the core of you with a superpower. But to find that girl, to find your superpower, you first have to confront the dark cold truth of your terror. You must face her, defeat her and make your peace.
Whatever your fear, you need to face the demon that wakes you in the middle of the night. The face of terror, which leaves you in a sweat, terrified. This is who you meet in the desert. I have met my demon, my terror, and I faced her.
I faced Death in the desert.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I faced the terror, the reality, that I might not live to see my Beauties grow, that I would leave the love of my life. Jeffrey would be alone to raise these Beauties. That he would love another, and would move on without me. That the Beauties would never learn the lessons that I wanted to teach them, that they would forget me, only know me as the distant memory of a sick frail mother, not my vibrant self. That Jeffrey and I would never go to Paris and drink champagne in a cafe or grow old together. That we would never have the life we had planned, that we would be robbed of this life.
So I was forced to meet Her. I had to face Death, acknowledge that she was present and know that she was coming for me. When you are sick, really sick, you understand that life is fragile.
It was a cold and lonely place in the desert and I was there for a long time. I was still getting up in the morning, kissing scraped knees, helping with homework, driving the car to the grocery. I did all of this while my spirit wrestled with Death. At night, I slept restlessly, because at night, every night we battled, faced off. It was ugly, it was primal, it was war. I was bruised, scarred, humbled, humiliated, but on I waged, on I faced her.
I faced her till there was nothing left, no anger, no pain...
When I surrendered... and faced that every worry, every fear, could happen, would happen.
Every worry, every fear was true, honest, raw, unyielding, and was going to happen.
The only thing that remained was peace.
Peace you ask? Yes. Peace.
Peace comes when you face the fear, really own it, allow it to wash over you, to recognize that this may well be the reality. When you find peace in the fear, you have finally made room for the Holy Spirit to come. Made room for HER wings to embrace you, to realize that this demon that I was wrestling all this time, was myself. I had to make room for the Holy Spirit, for her Wisdom, for her Grace, for her Love to protect me. To comfort me, to love me in the darkest of the darkness, to give me the grace to find my superpower, my inner light, my soul.
And when I found my soul, I was fearless, able to become the warrior that I need to be, in order to find my wellness, my life, my truth, my team, my faith. That is when you become the Joyful person.
I will die someday. I don't know where or when. This illness or something else. I have no control over when I die; but what I can control, with my soul, is the ability to silence these dark places. This isn't anxiety, this is mortality speaking. Most of us don't face mortality until we are old, but those of us who are blessed with serious illness, we get to face it early. It is a gift because it opens the door to cross something off the list. When you face your death, you realizes you have a TON of life to live. Joyfuls are far too busy to let death slow us down.
I don't think about dying much anymore, I have kicked that can so far down the lane I can't see it. Because once you own your fear, you learn that your soul is free, it is light, it is weightless, and that reduces the other challenges of life to little annoyances, like mosquitos or ants. It also makes you impatient with fools. That impatience often stings others. It is not intentional, truly, it is just that we are far too busy living, to wait for people that are wasting our precious time with their own foolishness.
Many get lost in the desert. For me, it was only when I faced the darkness in myself, that I realized the desert was a mirage, that I was standing next to the water the whole time. Thirsty. Ready to drink....
Peaceful, Joyful.
Kathryn
PilgrimageGal
photo credit:
Mike Chen aka Full Time Taekwondo Dad
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