Lifespan
We humans construct the world in very specific ways. Everything has a beginning and an end: epochs, revolutions, lifespans. Our minds are hard wired, it seems, to configure the world we live in by when something began and when it ended. Beginnings and endings hold much power for us.
The idea of lifespan has been on my mind lately. For several years a member of my extended family has been living with an aggressive form of cancer. There has been treatment, and some extra time and quality of days eked out. He has had a lot of pain and a good deal of suffering. His people, family and community, are witnesses. We can barely speak of it.
But this part I can speak to. These past few years have also been a time of unexpected beauty and grace, as those close to him draw even closer and share support, kindness and affection. He has had the chance to exhort us to be strong, to lead better lives. He has taken the last couple of years to give as much to his circle of family and friends, his wider community online, as he could muster each day. I will be a cancer warrior, he writes to us, you must be a warrior too.
Well, the life of a warrior is also one of service to others. It is a fitting description of him and this time.
I am stunned by his toughness, the sheer endurance of the man through this time. It has occurred to me more than once that some of this strength must be the support from his community of people. For much of his life he has been focussed outward, on the well being of everyone else. He does not speak of the two governor general awards he received, for service to the community, back when he was able to work. They are not framed on the wall for all to see. His focus is elsewhere. So maybe part of the toughness is some intangible thing coming back to him from all of the people he has helped, and everyone he has become connected to out of sheer generosity of spirit.
Make no mistake, to keep doing what he has been doing costs him. There is pain. He has options. The option he takes is this: late at night he writes to us all to say, hug your loved one, do it now. He writes affectionate and loving letters to his band of people. We respond. He is, right now, still with us, and with his time, bringing us into this brief period of grace.