Worth living

I chanced upon this in the course of my workday. I know anything related to suicide is never going to be an easy discussion but I'm looking at the article more from the quality-of-life-in-chronic-illness point of view.

The two lines that caught my eye:

". . . despite my MS, my existence has never been richer, surrounded by a loving family and friends."

"Assisted suicide would create a climate of fatalism, a loss of hope. It is [a] sickening world where individual life is devalued and where only the fittest are regarded as contributors of society."

I think we already do live in that world. A glance at the economy, at most social events, at popular entertainment is enough to prove that point.

How do we make it less sickening?

Twelve years

It seems a lifetime ago that the whole house stood still. So many changes since then: lines on faces, hairs turned grey, a grandson born, all the familiar feline forms that my mother knew gone the way of all cats.

Work and life alike throw me plenty of opportunities to talk about grief, to help others unpack theirs. That's the thing about grief, it really is a package. Its contents are mixed. Some days you reach in and pull out comfort, warm from the sun and smelling of cosy cuddles and laughs, whispered secrets and giggles and Saturday-morning shopping excursions.

At other times you feel bitten, as by a shark rather than by a mosquito: a large chunk of you, the part of you that this person shaped, is gone and you wonder how you go on. They don't make prostheses for that, but the human spirit is a wonderful regenerative thing. What grows back will never be what you had before, but it isn't completely foreign. I see others' experiences of grief, some much older than mine, and count myself blessed for the peace that I have.

I think I would have been a very different person if my mother were still alive. I don't know how much I'd have liked being that person. I only know and love the one I am now. I hope she does, too. From the nineteen years I had with her I've taken a lot, good and bad. A public blog is no place to tell about the bad. The good, no book on earth could hold.

I didn't feel any great pressure to post this today and only today, on the anniversary date. It worked out well that it fell on a Saturday this year, giving me time to blog. But truly, most days are the same. There's rarely, or never, a day when I don't think of her and miss her. It's really hard not to think of a person you strongly resemble in face and voice. But I've had a dozen years to find a way to live without the pillar of my earlier life. So far, by the grace of God, the way has been a good one to travel.

If you're one of those who knew and loved her too, raise a glass (okay, coffee mug -- containing a brew as strong as the mug can handle; we can always have a group tremour-and-tic session after) with me in honour and memory of the beautiful, tenacious, long-suffering, glad-hearted, cat-loving woman who was my (and my brother's) Mummy. Sally Saw Leng Geok, 1948-1999.

At last, the day's over

Today hasn't been a great deal of fun.

Cramps. Nausea. Headache. Muscle soreness. Constant hunger. Difficulty eating. No appetite. What a wonderful combination it isn't.

I'll read this tomorrow.

Click. Clack. Crunch.

Repeat that a few hundred times and you have what I feel on a daily basis. Each time I open my jaw, whether to eat, yawn, breathe, speak or sing, I get a variation of the three sounds above combined. And if they sound atrocious, they feel worse.

Over the years I'd got used to what my doctor says could either be a congenital weakness in my jaw, or the effect of countless small physical traumas that have built on each other and resulted in what I now have. I think that was the problem, getting used to it.

Patience and tolerance are commonly seen as good values to cultivate. But in some cases, I think, I should have been less patient. Less tolerant. Less permissive of small annoyances causing me discomfort. Because if I had put my foot down and sought medical care for this as a teenager, I don't think I would now be a breath away from ripping through the walls from the discomfort and constant dull pain.

Nonetheless, I am giving thanks as I write for the healing that I know will come. I'm not sure how -- my doctor uttered some not-so-sunny possibilities that included the words "surgery" and "replacement" but also, we're leaving the door wide open for other methods -- but I know it will.

It's easy to come to the end of a rough patch and say "I knew all along that things would be OK." To me, that isn't faith, it's cliche, and if there's one thing that annoys me more than a bad jaw...

So I'm going to sit here, while my jaw is in its present very imperfect state, and declare that "I know that it's going to be fine." That one day soon I'm going to wake up in the morning, yawn and stretch without getting the sound effects of a pachinko machine loading up. I can believe that I will completely overcome my present trying circumstances and not feel like an utter loony, because I know whom it is I'm relying upon. Not a bunch of flaky New Age affirmations or a vague, misty idea out of a book, but my faithful God who's seen me through many storms in the past.

Light at the end

I swallowed the tears as I watched the effects of a brain tumour at work. I swallowed my questions and vented my faith. I swallowed the "why?" as I looked at the "this is".

And finally, it's over.

"In this world, you will have trouble," was the promise. That's not the usual pep talk you'd get from a leader. Fortunately, there's more. "But take heart! I have overcome the world."