The Myth of Avoiding What Hurts -- 08 Oct 2010

The First Move - 08 October 2010 

Finding peace in the middle of everyday life...

May this find you well.

Looking back at the history of First Move letters, this may just be the messiest one I’ve ever written.  That messiness is a reflection of my long absence, and the events contributing to that absence.

This has been a most interesting year.  To say I went in to hiding would be an understatement.

After all, this letter - or a version of it - is promised to come your way every 2 weeks or so.

Looking back - it’s been 2 letters all year long.  It has not been for lack of something to share.  Something to say.

Rather it’s been about keeping myself protected and safe.   It’s been about vulnerability and transparency... and not feeling safe to be that way.

More than anything, it’s been a lesson on being human - with its ups, its downs and the ever present voice of ego trying to control, trying to keep itself separate and safe.

It's been about not wanting to feel too deeply lest I fall apart.

In the process, I’ve stayed away from you - who have so kindly and generously invited me into your lives through this medium of email.

Of course, I didn’t know that was what was going on.  I just thought I was too busy.  Too tired.  Too whatever.

It’s taken me this long to see for myself what has been going on.  This long to find the courage to write and connect with the part of me that’s been hurting all this time.

This is Christine.  (And her foster dog Clyde.)

Christine has been one of my best friends for over 20 years.  Yesterday, was her 61st birthday.

But she wasn’t here yesterday to celebrate it.  Instead, she passed away on June 19, leaving a whole bunch of us behind to remember this day on her behalf.  (My sister Liz and I started the day singing “Happy Birthday To You.... wherever you are..”.)

I can’t remember the year I met Chris, but I remember the how.

We worked together at a large pharmacy benefit management company.  Our paths initially crossed  when she was assigned to help me with a project.  She was so good at what she did, I helped her move from temporary to permanent status.

From the beginning, something about Chris spoke to me.  She carried a deep sadness within her that could be seen in her eyes.  I saw someone I wanted to know better.
 
Over time, we became close, deep friends of the heart.

As close as we were, there were major differences between us.

I trusted and was open to everyone I met.  She was more cautious and reserved. 

I’d always see the good in people; giving them the benefit of the doubt.  Chris put doubt first until someone proved themself to her.

I was always the optimist; the glass half full.  While not a pessimist, Chris was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She was fiercely loyal to the people she really cared about.  At the same time, she was fiercely private.

Late last year, Christine asked me to come down to Phoenix because she had something really important to tell me that she didn’t want to do by phone or email.
You know, the kind of request that hits your heart and stomach at the same time.

What she had to tell me was “I’ve got lung cancer”.

My heart dropped.... Christine was one of those people so health conscious -  I felt like a slug by comparison.  She ate right, exercised well and often, and oh! so many other things... and yet, cancer invaded her body in a really big way.

For the next 7 months, I watched my dear, sweet, wonderful friend go through the ups and downs of cancer treatment.  In the beginning, Chris was a 'model' cancer patient.  Chemotherapy and radiation.  Gazillions of tests, probings, xrays.  Doctors trying to do their best - but not really knowing.  No guarantees.  But plenty of questions.

The came late May, early June.  New cancer appeared.  When Chris discovered she was being asked to face a second round of chemo and more radiation - as a preventative - I could sense a change in her.

She’d had enough.  She was going to do what she did best when faced with a challenge - fight back.

But fighting back did not mean fighting cancer.  It meant saying no to the treatment.

It meant saying yes to connecting with the people she loved and who loved her.

Where before she was hiding, keeping her illness a secret, she now began to open up.
 

And as she did, there was a major transformation.  It seemed as if her heart grew larger, softer and more open.

Watching Chris go from guarded, protective and even somewhat suspicious to open, loving and inclusive was a miracle in the making.

She still had her fears, her worries, and her doubts about people and life.  But as her end came nearer, those fears and doubts had to share equal time with her open, warm heart.

For the first time in all the time I had known her - Chris was connecting with people at the level of the heart.

This was her healing.  Not from cancer.  But from the shell she had built around her heart all these years.

We all saw it.  We all felt it.

The night of June 23rd Chris was in hospice.  She'd had a bad week the week before, and the time in hospice was to get her meds stabilized, give her and Brett (her husband) some rest and in general get her back in to some balance.

That night, Chris, Brett and I shared a very strange, yet intimate slumber party.

It was in this visit that a deep truth hit me.

As much as I was okay with what was going on at the 50,000 foot level - that Chris' cancer and inevitable passing were part of life - at the day to day level of living, this thing with my friend really sucked.

It hurt.  There was nothing I could do about it.  And I did not want to feel the pain and the hurt.

A deeper truth emerged.  I saw that even in the midst of being present with Chris all these months,  I had walled off a very tender part of myself because I did not want to feel the awful pain of inevitably losing her.

The next morning, when the time came for me to leave, Chris and I hugged and kissed each other like there was no tomorrow.  Without a word, we both felt it.

That was Thursday.  Tuesday night, my cell phone rang.  It was Brett.

That morning Chris was getting ready to be released to go home when she fell into a coma, and she was not expected to make it through the night.  By 10PM she was gone.

Three months later, I’m celebrating her birthday.

In these 3 months, I've been looking more closely at that tender place.  Reflecting on what this experience has shown me about myself - and the lessons of being human.

And there lies the root of my silence these past months.  I did not want to feel the pain.

Writing connects me to that tender, vulnerable place.  I did not want to feel the pain.

And through this understanding, another, deeper truth has emerged.

By denying the pain, I also cut myself off from the joy.  It's like that old song with the words "You can't have one without the other...".

To fully experience joy, I need to also fully experience pain.

When I first saw that clearly, I began to feel 'bad' that I hadn't figured it out while Chris was alive.  But that felt like just another ego strategy to keep me stuck.

So I'm not going to beat myself up for what I 'didn't do'.  Instead, I'm feeling grateful for the time spent with Christine those last few months.

Witnessing the opening of her heart, the sharing of her love in ways I'd never witnessed before.

Being present with her in the midst of her pain, fear and suffering - two heart connected friends laughing and loving in the midst of it all.

Meeting her exactly where she was and where she needed me to be.

And grateful for the gift of finally understanding in a deeper way the need to open to all of life's expereinces - pain, sorrow, joy, laughter, love - and everything in between.

It's what it means to be human.

Becasue in the space between those experiences is something deeper and richer.  Something we can connect with if we're willing to go into the fear and pain as well as the joy.

It's the ground of being.  The basic goodness out of which we've all arisen, and into which we'll return.

May all beings be happy, beginning with you.

May the merit of this work be for the benefit of all beings.  Ho!