Take two

I wanted to close this blog down with one long overdue post. Jul has recovered from her surgeries and has a full range of motion on her right side. She still gets phantom pains where they removed her breast but if that is all we are left with, we consider ourselves lucky. Jul hasn’t seen any side effects from the Tamoxifen and she will take it for the next five years. All data shows the cancer was removed.

My cancer brought me a great deal of clarity and erased an immense amount of fear. I am comfortable with my inevitable death and feel oddly invincible as a result. This is an amazing place to be. I watched Jul work through this minefield of growth and feel lucky to stand with her on the other side.

Our second dance with cancer made it brutally clear to me that while I was comfortable with my own mortality, I most certainly was not comfortable with Jul’s death. While I found my own death peaceful, the idea that she would leave me here, alone, was terrifying. Working through this fear was a journey that started the day we found out how bad things looked for her. I am confident I have found my soulmate — the brutal reality that I might not live my life with her was earth shattering.

So much of what I have learned over these past three years I see expressed by endless cliches on t-shirts and bumper stickers. But there is a gap between reading these words and understanding them. And then an even bigger gap between understanding them and living them.

The moments I have, the right now, are all mine. My experience, our experiences, gave us anchors to remember this. Radiation tattoos on my chest, surgery scars on our bodies, simple habits like rubbing my thumb against my index and middle finger. Each of these pull me back to now and remind me what is important.

Richard Bach said it best in his book Illusions,

Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there.

What you choose to do with them is up to you.

I am sitting on the couch in our bedroom, looking at the leaves blow in the trees above our house. There are few sounds more peaceful than that of wind gently rustling the leaves. The house is quiet and my puppy is asleep on my chest. Jul and I didn’t choose to live — that was just luck. But given this chance, we both choose life. I choose to feel my puppy’s heartbeat against my chest. I close my eyes and hear Jul’s breathing as she sleeps across the room. I choose to feel the wind roll in through the window and brush across my skin. I choose to be here, right now. I choose to be more alive than I could have ever imaged possible. I choose this moment.

Thank you all for being a part of this journey.