84, 50. 600. They’re just numbers. Seemingly insignificant, and yet I’ve discovered that they are in fact indescribably monumental.
84 years. That’s roughly how many years an Aussie bloke has on the planet (give or take).
50, is roughly how many times my heart beats per minute.
600 times is roughly the number of times I breathe in an hour (calculations done with the limited accuracy of my phone’s functions).
Being relatively fit, well and active was who I was - and, I was pretty sure I knew who I was.
The “I” I thought I was, was reasonably happy with that person, despite being aware of most flaws.
I was fairly comfortable with life (apart from that tiny voice in the background that wasn’t quite satisfied, wasn’t quite sure that I was enough).
There was something in that voice that was comforting though. Perhaps it was mildly comforting because it was mine, and yet at the same time it was uncomfortable, like having an itch that wasn’t quite strong enough to have you go to the effort of having a good old soul soothing scratch.
It was just there.
The voice would chime in occasionally, and remind me of my dissatisfaction and inadequacy, sometimes screaming in my ear, and other times barely a whisper.
I would unconsciously, and often, distract myself from it by doing lots of things until I inevitably did something so stupid or impulsive, that it couldn’t be hidden, and it would appear more obviously. Generally though, I largely ignored it and went about my life.
And then..... “I” died.
The Doctor, an Irish woman, from behind the CT scan results said, ”You have a mass in your brain and lesions in your lungs”. Try not to worry, it might not be malignant”, or something to that effect. My hearing became a little fuzzy half way through that conversation.
Her slightly indifferent, self-protective facade didn’t hide her concern though, and she left to do some unknown job in the depths of the hospital.
She left me in that bed, in a hospital, on the other side of the country. Alone, with my thoughts; alone with that voice.
I’m a knockabout bloke. I’ve had my share of stitches, injures and trips to outpatients. But, I’d never been taken there in an ambulance, and I’d never collapsed after losing control of my body, and, I had not wet myself for a long time.
The voice was primed.......”You are royally f$#ked, it stated solidly”.
I’ve been scared of cancer for a long time. If I’m honest, terrified would be a more accurate word. I’d seen enough of it to scare the living crap out of me, including the death of my father who I was sure was indestructible.
That Doctor left me in that room with my thoughts.
I’ve been scared before; and done enough dumb stuff to have felt fear before, but this? This was next level. The fear I had felt in the past had been fleeting, and usually it was over in moments.
This fear was epic; air driven from your chest, taste the adrenaline fear, and it threw itself full force at my rib cage, over and over again, and each time the voice in my head started telling me what I knew about melanoma.
It took me back to the melanoma that had been removed from my shoulder three years earlier.
I thought I knew what metastatic melanoma meant, and it was not pretty. Round and round my mind went.... epic fear, a tiny moment of escape, then back to blood draining from my face and a Mike Tyson punch to the sternum.
I don’t know how long I did that, but eventually I’d had enough.
Attempting to escape from my mind had not worked. It was relentless. I was beaten, busted up, scared and small. I was 53 years old. I wanted to hide in a tiny corner, and.... I wanted my Mum.
It’s when I died.
Or, should I say, “I” died.
There is much that this experience has taught me, and many ways I am different because of it, but in fact, I’d go so far as to say that it has been one of the most incredible times of my life.
It know this seems a strange thing to say but having had stage 4 metastatic melanoma in brains and lungs was one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me.
It has been a wonderful gift, and has had me learning the lessons and changing, because of one simple thing I did.
I surrendered.
I stopped fighting.
We’re supposed to fight, strive, push, get ahead.
I stopped.
I let it all go.
I even let “me” go.
In moments of crisis you get to find out who you are for “your” people and your community.
(I have to say that this part is difficult to write without crying - something I seem to have no problems doing now, as disconcerting as it is for others....and amusing for me).
I was humbled,....utterly and completely humbled by people. The efforts of the people who rallied, who rang; who offered help, who helped my family, who did things I wouldn’t ever have imagined needed doing, has changed me forever.
It was breathtaking.
It was a shock to discover I was loved.
I had gone about my life, helping out when I could, but never thought too much about it...until, it was turned back on me.
What a revelation. I was actually loved. That voice I’d been hearing in the background that put in it’s two bobs worth about how unworthy, inept etc I was, either wasn’t seen by the people who loved me, or....it was ignored, accepted, and I was still loved, despite those failings.
Perhaps who I thought I was, wasn’t same way as many others saw me.
I have forgiven myself for my behaviour prior to collapsing. The discovery I had a peach sized tumour in my right temporal lobe, pushing a part of my brain down my spinal cord and warping reality, got me off the hook.
Looking back, some of my behaviour was difficult to understand and seems crazy. It was easy to forgive myself for that, but what about the stuff I’d been doing all my life?
I couldn’t expect others to forgive all that? I couldn’t expect people to forgive my small behaviour, my rants, my occasional crankiness, my overzealous emotional blindness and clumsiness? Could I?
Why would they?
They had, and they did, because humans at their core are good. They have, beneath their pain, busyness, lives and their stories; a desire to contribute, and if you scratch down deep enough, they love, and they want to love.
Underneath all our pettiness and greed, and all the potential to hurt, is the the “L” word. Love. It’s there, it’s deep down, buried by advertising, squashed by the economy, and hidden by deadlines, lost in the scratch to survive, but.... gloriously, endlessly and wonderfully, it’s there.
Songs have been written about it, religions built on it, people sit on cold rocks and chant in the mountains to come face to face with it.
It’s there.
I saw it, and, I still do.
I am eternally grateful to those people who rose up and helped. They did entirely everyday actions, and yet they did something huge. They showed and gave me love...despite my flaws.
That love was a text, a photo, a plane ticket home, money, concern, and more, but what it was was capital L LOVE, just below the surface.
That net of love, helped me to surrender. I fell back into the arms of people and decided to look for the love.
There were logistical things happening in the background too. I was moved to another hospital, I was ambulanced, nursed, doctored, brain surgery-ed and fed. Sometimes love was deeper in the person, hidden behind doing, but, it was there, always there.
I now know “surrender” to be a word laden with incredible possibilities.
So many indescribably beautiful things were available to me as a result of surrendering.
To be clear - surrender doesn’t mean giving up. It means trusting, it means acceptance, and, it means peace.
I discovered a peace that I didn’t know existed. Behind that peace, behind that acceptance, there was little need for “me”.
In surrender I discovered that I wasn’t who or what I thought I was.
“I” died.
I discovered that “I” was largely unnecessary in the face of brain surgery and cancer. I discovered “I” was a construct.
I was free of “me”. I was free to see behind the stories, and what I saw was love.
When my daughters flew to my side and sang a few words of a song I had sung to them when they were children, I wept like a baby. I wept deep tears of gratitude.
When the neurosurgeons read me the list of potential side effects, I felt their concern, I felt and saw love.
When I woke some 7 hours later, in pain and confused, the nurses were love. The tea lady who made what was possibly the world’s best cup of tea... made a cup that tasted of love.
The end of life counsellor, physio, speech pathologist, all did their jobs. Everyday, mundane activities - but, now that “I” was out of the way, behind it all, all I could see was love.
Everyday activities, everyday breaths, heartbeats, mundane?
If you say so.
I came out of my brain surgery and into my dance with cancer, conscious of my breath, conscious of the 13.8 billion years of stars collapsing and cosmic convulsions that allowed me to breathe, to have a heartbeat and to be conscious.
“I” died, and I fell deeply in love with some numbers. 84, 50, 600, 13.8 billion. With that recognition of the importance of those numbers, also fell utterly and deeply in love with life, and, seemly strangely enough, even in love with cancer.