Monday, January 27, 2014

Grateful for the pain

As you may have noticed, I've fallen off the 365-day-blog-challenge wagon. With good reason. Just over a week ago my husband, the love of my life, the thorn in my side, the man who challenges me to be better every day, who believes I already am better, the man who makes me laugh and sigh, that man, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Just typing that hurts.

If you want to know more about his illness you can check out his caringbridge page. I don't want to recount it here. Go ahead. I'll be waiting when you get back.

In the last week we have spent most of our time in the hospital, where they are poking, prodding, determining, diagnosing, arguing and trying to understand what's happening to him. He has been in so much pain he cannot walk and is moaning aloud. Through all of this I have been only able to hold his hand or rub his back or tell him I love him. Over and over again.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Because there is nothing else I can really say.

I have never cried so hard as I have this week, though I expect I will have lessons in crying harder. I cannot bear to imagine what he will have to go through, what is to come, yet it is all I can think about.

Through it all, there is a peculiar kind of grace emerging, one I never wanted but recognize. I am so angry this is happening to him. And I am so grateful that I am here with him. I have never hurt like this - and I know my pain is nothing compared to his - but even this much emotional pain is exceeded by love. By the love I feel for him. By the love I feel for my friends and family. By the love I see wrapping around him with every text message, every phone call, every moment spent reading by his bedside, every act of kindness. I would not see it so easily were it not for the magnitude of the pain.

I'm in no way talking about physical pain. What my beloved is experiencing in his body is awful and bears no gift. But the very rawness of this time allows us to see what we miss in everyday life. The grace. The small moments of kindness that make life manageable, if not always bearable. The love. Always the love.

(c)2014 Laura S. Packer Creative Commons License

22 comments:

  1. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love to you both, and more love on top of that love and more love on top of that love and more love on top of that love.....

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  2. On one hand, I don't feel like I know the two of you well enough to feel the way I do...on the other, you are both so open and generous with your hearts that I want to pour out this bizarre combination of love and swearing. My prayers and good thoughts are with you both.

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    1. Thank you. And be in touch, we need everyone we can get!

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  3. I keep thinking: " How can this happen to such NICE people....such beautiful, spectacular specimens of humanity and community? Sending more love....

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  4. Love and hugs to you and Kevin. Good thoughts and prayers. And certainly, a homemade lemon swirl cheesecake if it will help.

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  5. I'm so sorry to hear this news. I hardly know Kevin, but I know enough to know he is wonderful. My thoughts will be with you. - Emily Akins

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  6. I don't know you, but I've seen your heart through your blog posts and through P137. I'm so very sorry to read this news. I send you both much love and will keep you tucked into my heart and prayers.

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  7. Laura,
    I love you both so very much! There aren't words enough for me to describe how very much you two mean to me. I love you, I'm here for you!

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  8. Okay guys, it's time for you to get to know the story of a friend of mine named Dave DeBronkart or, as he is better known as, "e-Patient Dave."

    Dave is a 7-year-and-counting survivor of Stage IV kidney cancer — one that was supposed to have a 24-week survivability envelope. His story describes a world very different from the one we see and experience from our doctors and hospitals and news sources. It's a world filled not just with blind hope and desperate "Hail Mary passes," but with facts and statistics that suggest a VERY different story: One of how information about a dizzying number of new studies and breakthrough treatments for even rare forms of cancer are constantly taking place, and how news about these advances get disseminated (often with an astonishing 3 to 7-year time lag—that can sometimes extend to up to 30 YEARS), and how a remarkable amount of that information has been found, culled, examined critically and reported on in online patient communities.

    Here's a TED talk he gave not long ago: http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_debronkart_meet_e_patient_dave.html

    Here's an interview with him in the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-patricia-fitzgerald/e-patient-dave_b_1124865.html
    His story and bio are at http://www.epatientdave.com/about-dave/

    I am happy to introduce you. I also want you to know that I love you both dearly (though I do a crappy job of showing it), that and my thoughts and prayers are with you. and that I will be holding you in the light. —Jonathan

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    1. Yes, please introduce us. That might help. We need to grab onto all the verified hope we can.
      Laura

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  9. Tony said it all!
    Rona said it.
    I'll say it:
    You two are like Brother Blue.
    Each of you are a wing, joined in body and soul by the body on a big beautiful butterfly giving joy, love, open honesty, and authenticity to everyone in your space. Even those who might be passing by feel something coming off you and turn, wondering what it is.
    S

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  10. I have put you both in my prayers pocket and will carry you around and lift you up as long as you need. Love to you both.
    Lauretta

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  11. Dear sweet Kevin and Laura, you are wise and wonderful to open to the love that is in your hearts for each other, and to the love from your friends, that is extended to you and is surrounding you every moment. Bottom line, this sucks, and it's a grueling journey, but grace will shine through, and you are both clear enough to see it when it happens. I have to admit, I am stunned to hear this news ... and deeply sad that you two dear ones must travel this road. I love you both and hold you in that love. Sending distant energy healing to you both. And as Tony said, love and more love surrounding that ... meg

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  12. Your post brought tears, Laura; so full of love, anger, hope, despair and determination. The range you are feeling is wearing on body and soul. I wish I could say things to soothe and comfort, but all I find are words of strength--to stand firm, to believe, to not give up or give in, to love and love and love again. May the heavens rain blessings on you both.

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  13. thank you for opening this song of grief and love and faith with us. may every moment of every day be filled with ceaseless joy and blessing ..
    love

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  14. I could only identify with your pain, we have dealt with pancreatic cancer twice in our family. Treatments had improved greatly from the first to the second time. Here's wishing you both the best.
    Miriam Diamond

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  16. Laura, just speechless. Can't even think of the words to say or write. I will pray for you both. Eric Haynes

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  17. Dear dear good friends, what a shock to stumble via LinkedIn on your news amonth ago. I regularly think of you both with love and such joy to count you as friends. Much much has happened, this seems an important time to catch up with you.. Like my frail mother's illness last year
    Happy ever after seems far from my brother too - diagnosed with cancer about 8months ago and now maybe 1 or 2 weeks left to live.. what a difficult journey life can be. Sending you both love and hoping to reconnect at least via skype v soon, Paul

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True Stories, Honest Lies by Laura S. Packer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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