On illness, loss and identity

We begin life fresh and surprised at the sensory assault of even the limited confines of the birthing room.

After that initiation into chaos, followed by the first reassuring embrace from our mother, we linger through the slow days of childhood, looking forward with anticipation to our adult years, which we think may signal freedom and independence.

The slow pace of childhood accelerates in our twenties, when we spend much of our time in the world of things thought but unsaid, feelings felt but not exclaimed – often for fear of the shame of rebuke and rejection.

How wrong we were to be so hesitant, we think, as time torques and we are slingshot through our thirties and into our forties, and we réalise that indeed, there was nothing to be afraid of. That others would have welcomed the expression of our candid thoughts, rather than be confined to the lonely towers of our mutual fear of the world.

Alas, this period is often triggered by illness and loss. First the loss of beloved family members, then of mentors and then, perhaps most unnerving, of peers and friends and colleagues.

Sometimes the loss is one of disappearance, sometimes it is of mental ability, other times it is simply debilitating illness that takes away the rhythms and cadence of the life we knew with that person. In any of these, the loss is sad and sometimes shocking, for it makes us  meditate on our mortality and life’s fragility.

When we watch a friend endure a physical trial, struggling to keep strong mind dominant over a weakened body, we are reminded that our strength shouldn’t be reserved for those epic struggles against the force which pulls us toward the night, but rather that strength should be expressed in the moment in every day. Strength should not be epic, rather it should be a force that, deployed in noble and honourable causes makes for a better, more predictable and secure world for us and those around us.

You see, I have had an epiphany amidst the confusion of the losses I have experienced in the last ttwo years.

And it is simple.

Strength comes not of struggling against others or an idea. Indeed, that is weakness and, in fact, a waste of precious time. Rather, strength comes of working for an ideal. It comes of cherishing the lives of those around us, even those with whom we disagree, and working toward making the case for a better world.

I think that when we adopt the idea of recognizing the vulnerability and fragility of those people who disagree with us, then fear and resentment fade. We can love earnestly and with care. We can put thoughts of control and power behind us.. those thoughts which form  an iron cage for our minds and hearts.

The beauty of this is that we are aware of the glorious light of discovery and surprised at the comfort of the caring love of another when we first come into the world. This is indeed a gentle irony to contemplate as we rediscover ease in the midsummer of our lives.

So younger readers, I entreat you to relax your fear of reprisal and express your care for those around you in earnest trust. Youth is a fleeting treasure, like a sun beam across the snow on a grey day in February … a thing to be enjoyed and acted upon.

For those of you closer to my age, may I suggest that you reject fear and insecurity as well as the structures we have put into place in our lives that seems powerful, but now only serve as iron cages of anxiety, stress and fear.

Open this golden door before you are jolted into this realisation by illness and loss.

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