Wisdom of Others

 

This last week has been glorious. Really the word GLORIOUS—angels coming down from puffy white clouds in heaven and everything. And it has been truthful. It is true what they say about chemo, it is cumulative with side effects multiplying overtime. As a result, in the prior two weeks, Jim never quite got back to his full energy self that is until the last three days. But then in those three days those clouds opened and the sun began to shine. Jim being the fortune teller he seems to be, saw bicycling weather ahead. With these compounding factors, he asked for an extra week free from chemo. And Dr. Greenblatt, looking at his stats, agreed to it. The heavens then chimed in and gave us a stretch of beautiful blue sky days. Jim upped his mileage on the bike and refinished our garage!

On my end, I pushed my gardening a bit too far—moving 3 yards of compost, double digging a 20 square foot plot, and planting a tree—and not surprisingly, threw my back out.

But here it is, we enjoyed the week immensely even taking an eight mile bike ride together in South Hero on Sunday. Every little thing—beautiful. We stopped at Snowflake Winery, sat out on the verandah, and I shared with Jim, that since his cancer, all the normal upsets of everyday life are no longer upsetting and instead what I see is the beauty in everything.

A friend of mine, writing about his partner who is recovering from a  severe stroke wrote recently:

"There are many things in life that aren’t compromised by disability.  Sometimes a lack of capacity in one area increases your sensitivity and appreciation of simple things.  It’s a gift."

And honestly this is perhaps the best way of putting it. We experience the darkest possibilities and then we experience a profound paradigm shift and see differently.

Today Jim was in chemo. Just before the Benadryl (used to counteract the chemo effects) kicked in, I shared this with him and said to him that it seems weird but "thank you". This was heard by his oncology nurse who then shared that in all her years, it is the couples who thank each other who have the strongest relationships.

Perhaps that uncovers a deep truth, those who are able to say thank you to life, have the deepest joy.