Thursday, February 7, 2008

Each ending is a beginning

Tomorrow J undergoes the increasingly common operation that women are experiencing in depressing numbers, a mastectomy.

The support expressed by everyone who has learned of this situation has been most reassuring. Typically, these expressions fall into two categories: 1) my friend, relative had this operation (or variant of it) and has survived for __ years, and 2) you have our prayers/good thoughts. And many also add, "If there's anything we can do..."

This is the good stuff that human beings are made of. It comes out spontaneously, and it's not mere polite/self-conscious chatter. The worse the situation the more intense the sympathy and support.

Cancer itself is one of our universal fears, not always because of the probability of a shorter lifespan than one would have wished or planned for, but often because it means such a loss of control over one's body. Medical treatments are not something anyone looks forward to, but the fear arises as much or more from the uncertainty as from the inevitable pain.

And so, from tomorrow forward, the prospect of living a day at a time with an attitude of gratitude becomes the first order of business. For, as the Dalai Lama has said, "If you have a situation that you can do something about, why worry? And if you have a situation that you can do nothing about, why worry?"

One day, perhaps, we shall understand how to heal ourselves of all these genetically-based diseases. I hope that if that is ever the case, we also become wiser, gentler, and more loving. Greed and war and selfishness are so old school.