Even Then: Inspiration on 9/11 From a Young Woman Facing Her Second Bone Marrow Transplant
We Have a Bigger Impact on People Than We Realize
Disrupters wrestle down our perspective, flinging us to the ground in defeat. Shortly after writing “Trapped in my Body” https://lifeafterwhy.com/blog/trapped-in-my-body my thoughts splinter once more, and I am aware of the enormity of the mental battle of cancer. I fear slipping off the edge from the force of not feeling well in four months. Wracked with pain, numb and sore, beaten down by chemo, I groan and struggle each day. Weary and exhausted, I turn to a word game for distraction.
Rising desire accentuates the loss I’m experiencing. Visions of hiking in Mammoth in the fall intrude into the word game, followed by doubts of whether I can enjoy myself before radiation starts. September travel dreams are on hold; my new electric mountain bike gathers dust in the garage; my former Fitbit scores are out of reach, local trails a distant memory, and boring walks along the flat green belt a trivial substitute. I can usually reign myself in, tell myself to be patient, focus on the gifts I do have, but desire obfuscates a clear view. Is desire the unseen factor in perspective crashes?
Like Macbeth I am “cabined, cribbed, confined, bound to saucy doubts and fears” (Macbeth, III.iv.26). I appreciate the climax of these carefully crafted words by Shakespeare. The anthimerias (the rhetorical device of using one part of speech as another, a noun as a passive verb here) combined with the hard “c” of these three words quickly hammer the nail to Macbeth’s confinement. I too feel hemmed in, closed down, and shut up. “Hope deferred makes a heart sick” (Prov. 13:12).
It’s important to count my losses. Naming them helps me face reality; naming them flattens the curve of depression. But what then? How do I follow what Rankin Wilbourne calls “owning not enthroning” my feelings, not being controlled or ruled by them? His acronym OWN is helpful. O is for observing or tuning into the emotions; W is for welcoming them; N is for naming them. It’s not a matter of denying or indulging feelings, but of acknowledging and holding them loosely. OWN frees me up inside to engage a perspective shift.
A former student, Brittany, offers me a perspective change. She is a beautiful and intelligent lawyer, who is newly married and has endured several bouts with lymphoma in her short life of 29 years. Today she ties up loose ends at work as she prepares to undergo a second bone marrow transplant the next day with her brother, Michael, a medical doctor, as the donor. She will be in isolation for a few weeks, away from her new husband, enduring the familiar ravages of chemo. She’ll be unable to keep food or drink down, pasted to the floor by the toilet too weak to rise. The fear of the transplant not working will whir in the background. She’ll worry about getting graft vs. host disease and other unknown side effects. She emails me saying “I’ve never truly made it to long-lasting remission. My longest was not even one year.” Although she is exhausted, she continues her valiant fight with animated defiance.
Brittany understands what it means to own, not enthrone her feelings. She recently inked the two words “even then.” on her wrist from the song by Micah Tyler. The song was released right before her original diagnosis three and a half years ago, and she felt like the lyrics were speaking directly to her:
Even when it feels like my world is shaken,
Even when I've had all that I can take,
I know, you never let me go.
And even when the waters won't stop rising,
Even when I'm caught in the dead of a night,
I know, No matter how it ends,
You're with me even then.*
Brittany attests that “this message and feeling has gotten me through a lot in the last three and a half years. It reminds me that no matter what is going on, no matter how desperate things may seem, He is with me, watching me, and loving me. He shares in my pain and celebrates my victories.” About the tattoo she adds that “my husband and I have a rule that you have to want a tattoo for 2-3 years before getting it on your person, so when I found out about my second transplant, I knew I wanted to get it beforehand as a reminder.”
“Even then” is a choice she makes; it’s a bold declaration and a settled conclusion. “Even then” stakes out her mental landscape. She knows first-hand that, ultimately, God’s presence is her greatest gift and comfort in this fragile and beautiful life on planet earth.
Brittany’s bravery inspires me. Her words jolt me in an instant out of my pity pit. I want to stand with her in her fight, firm-footed and steady, not letting my disrupters wrestle me to the ground. I want to be strong for her. This is how our journeys touch others, how we draw strength of character from one another. Like trees in the forest drawing sustenance from vast root systems, we infuse strength in others when we stand strong together.
I remember that today is 9/11, a day of great loss, a day of commitment to an arduous journey, a day to remember our unity and strength as a people.