Fear

I don’t think that I have ever felt so challenged by events as I do now. There are the familiar ones that have been laid bare here in the past, and there are some wounds that stubbornly refuse healing, though I continue to hope. No, the thing that I fear the most, is me.

You see, I quickly learned after hearing the dreaded diagnosis so many years ago, that you can be your worst enemy. You can worry and fret, you can succumb to fear and depression, you can make yourself sicker, quicker by letting all of these negative things into your life. And I resolved to myself back then, that I would fight that with everything that I had, that I would look “on the bright side” and try to find the good things in life for as long as I had it. For the most part, I have been pretty successful.

But now, it is getting harder. I fear that my cancer is becoming active again and I am running out of options to fight it. That alone is not enough to make me feel the uneasiness that accompanies me constantly. What I fear is that I will have to face this alone. By saying that, I am not denying your existence or your kind thoughts. What I am talking about is being without my closest companion as I come to this great task.

You see, it was always going to be me who went first. As I would get sicker and weaker, I would have someone there to take care of not just me, but the kids too. Believing that removed a great weight from my shoulders. That was the plan. I don’t know who changed it, but this new reality sucks.

My fear is that I won’t have the courage to face this alone. You see, to me, courage is the ability to find hope where there is no hope to be found. It is getting harder to see that possible bright spot. This will be my greatest challenge.

There will come times when I will have to choose whether to go through another round of treatment. I know this scenario all too well. I know the desire to fight, to prove to those you love and who love you that you are fighting with everything that you have. But there will come a time when I will not want to fight anymore. C worried that our children would think less of her because, in the end, she couldn’t tolerate anymore horrible treatments, any more stays in the hated hospital, any more pain. I have that same fear. And I know that day will come for me. I just don’t know when.

Through C’s darkest times, I was there. On the rare occasions where I had to be elsewhere, she had her sisters and her mother to lean on. This is not an option for me. I fear being alone at the end. I fear what my children will go through.

Strangely enough, I don’t fear death. I am actually quite curious about it. It’s the getting there that I dread.