Part of the lucky few

I haven’t really delved into my personal depths while posting about fighting this disease, but there have been a few questions asked about how I’ve been coping with this mentally/spiritually in addition to the obvious physical coping.

I’m not a very eloquent writer, and I’m even worse at producing the right words to describe the depths of my “soul,” so to speak. I have, however, not changed much of my way of thinking about how the universe chugs along, keeping all of us in tow. And, in the act of doing so, some of us get a little beat up along the way (some worse than others). I think Annie Dillard, in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, puts it best:

“I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down. Simone Weil says simply, ‘Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love.'”

To say that I am lucky is to also say that I am one of the survivors, as are you. There are plenty of reasons to keep being and doing my best, but this one stands above the rest. I’ve made it this far, others have not. You’ve made it this far, too. There may not be answers to all of the questions I have, but there is definite cause to celebrate (especially once I am stronger and out of the hospital). I will, with the help of  medical science, friends and family, and my ever-loving partner and wife, pull out of this with a few scars, but alive nonetheless.