For
a long time after my diagnosis, I found it nearly impossible to dream. I don’t
mean dreaming while I was asleep. I mean dreaming of future possibilities. All
I could think of was the past, everything that had happened to me, everything
that I had done that I regretted, everything that I had done that I was
thankful for. But I could not think of the future, because I didn’t trust it. I
didn’t know if I had one. I feared what was next for me. I’ve written about
this before, I know, but I heard a quote the other day that made me want to
revisit this topic. Because this doesn’t just apply to cancer. This applies to
anyone whose life has been shattered or upended by an unexpected trauma.
 |
| Olympic dreams! |
I
was running on the treadmill the other day (yes, actually running) watching yet
another Ironman recap (it’s an addiction I can’t break – one that will surely
lead to an impulsive, er, stupid Ironman registration sometime in the future). I
find it particularly motivating to watch other people suffer through the insanity
of a marathon through lava fields after already racing for six or more hours.
It keeps my 45 minutes on the hamster wheel in perspective. But Ironman races
are not just about the swim, bike and run. Many of the people in these races
are overcoming huge demons. They are proving something to themselves about what
is possible. In the footage I was watching that day, there was a father
completing the race whose daughter had been killed in the Sandy Hook massacre
in December 2012. I remember that day vividly, as I’m sure many of you do. I
was less than six months post-transplant and in a very fragile state. I cried
for weeks, wondering how those parents could ever go on.
But
what this dad said during his Ironman interview is now stuck in a loop in my
head. He said he had always dreamed of racing the Ironman world championships,
long before his daughter was ripped from him. When that happened, when his
world exploded, their family could never be normal again. A piece of them was
gone forever. With two children of my own, I cannot even begin to imagine this
heartbreak. I lost a lot of things to cancer, but nothing that compares to this
father’s loss. Yet, this man and his wife made a conscious and very brave decision
to keep living their lives as they imagined their daughter would want them to.
They chose not to go down the path of “why me” because they felt that would
take them into a dark hole from which they would never climb out. As someone
who knows the “why me” trap very well, avoiding it is much easier said than
done.
And
then the father said something that really stayed with me. He said that he was
doing the race to show his son that it was still OK to have dreams. That it was
OK to pursue your passions and live your life fully, even after everything that
had happened.
At
that moment, I realized that this is why I write. It’s also why I train. I want
others to see that there can be a full, abundant life after cancer or other
traumas, regardless of how long or short the rest of that life might be. I want
people, and especially my children, to see that even after heartbreak, loss,
injury or illness, it’s OK to have dreams and pursue big, crazy goals, even if
you have to reassess from time to time (or if you have to reschedule). It’s
more than OK. It’s vital.
One
my favourite quotes that I’ve come across in my yoga training comes from Gil
Hedley: “Our brokenness may explain us, but it
doesn't excuse us. You are charged to pick up your pieces, and recover your
wholeness.”
Indeed. When we
survive a trauma, we must eventually resurface and repair ourselves and rejoin
the living world. We simply cannot live in the aftermath forever. There is the
reality of mouths to feed and bills to pay, of course (which can feel like a
harsh reality after surviving cancer or another trauma – after all, shouldn’t
the demands of the real world just pause for us?). But there is also a full,
amazing, abundant life to be lived. What a waste of survival if I chose to live
bitter and angry, or simply on autopilot, for whatever remaining years I have
left.
But trauma or not,
it’s a waste for anyone to live like
that. We are all of us broken in some way or another. What we choose to do with
that is up to us.
Running
(and swimming and cycling and yoga and meditation and prayer) is how I pick up
my pieces. Yes, I have been known to push too hard and put myself into a hole (exhaustion,
stress fracture, pneumonia, blah blah). Sometimes we charge forward to avoid
looking back, and I am definitely guilty of that. But when we move forward with
an acknowledgement of the past and how it has changed us, rather than simply
running from it, we can truly put ourselves back together. Training for an
event and keeping my body in motion helps me to do that. It helps me to
separate myself from the demons of radiation and chest catheters and hair
falling out in clumps in the hospital shower. It helps me to realize how
fortunate I am to be out of that place. It helps me to realize that those
things do not define me anymore. I am no longer a sick person. I have picked up
my pieces. I am someone new.
The
only question now is, what big, crazy dream are you going to pick for your life?
