The other day I was driving along and I felt a curious sense of well being. I say curious, because I cannot ever remember having such a feeling. Lying on a narrow gurney in a dim lit emergency room after I had been given morphine for a kidney stone is my closest experience. After everyone had left me alone, peaceful silence followed, and as I looked through the doorway to the central command station, I thought to myself that I could just lie there, forever, and be happy. But no, this state of well being was not drug induced nor carefree. It was a gift from heaven, unasked for and undeserved. With it came the feeling that life, even with its troubles did not stretch out before me as a journey full of burdens.
My heart throbbed wild with worry during the dark days of my husband's illness. There were too many compounded problems that went along with living with cancer. Both of us tried to be happy and live with the disease, rather than let it take over our lives. Trying to be happy and brave in spite of the grim outlook took it's own toll. Cancer filled every corner and affected all aspects of daily living. I imagined that both of us had revolvers pointed at our heads ready to go off at any moment. Sometimes the safety was on, but the guns were always loaded. One day the one pointed at my husband's head went off, but it didn't kill him immediately. Cancer doesn't work that way. It chews at you, consuming you bits at a time. Finally, between the harsh chemo and the gnawing cancer, he died. The gun at my head dropped, with a thump, to the floor. I heard it fall, but distracted with the immediate circumstances of my husbands death, I ignored it.
Days, weeks, months, a year went by, before I remembered that the gun wasn't there anymore. Lightheartedness does not come easy to me. I took that fleeting moment of well being and stashed it away in my box of hope.
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