Growing up I was a fat kid and did not feel as though I was particularly popular at school. Everyone knew about me, because I was very loud and gregarious, but I had a relatively small cadre of friends. Part of what I did in high school and into college was to develop my sense of empathy, reasoning that I could raise my “value” by being someone to whom people could bring their problems and talk about them. To this day, when people come to me with concerns in their lives, I listen and try to offer (hopefully helpful) advice. In short, I like helping other people and dislike it when my actions have the opposite effect.
I dislike causing people to get upset. That’s who I am. Yet, all I have done recently….Okay, let me stop here and say that, Yes! I understand I have not DONE anything, but my life situation has changed in a way that has negatively impacted others. Thus, while I have not actively DONE anything, I (Merle) am the source of sadness, stress, concern, etc. for others. That having been said, though, I’m sorry this is happening. (Not sorry as in I did this on purpose, but sorry as in I really (Really, REALLY) wish this were not happening and sorry as in I hate that my circumstances make others sad and/or upset.)
On several occasions, I have called people whom I have told about my cancer back to make sure they are okay and to see if I can do anything to alleviate their pain and/or distress. As I said, I use humor to help ME get through this, though I had to stop and remind myself that not everyone can use humor as a defense mechanism in that way (Cathy, a friend from high school, essentially told me she was not in a place where she could appreciate my humor yet.) My Mom has called me (almost) everyday to check in with me and when she asks me how I am doing I almost always respond, “I’m still alive!” or “I’m not dead yet!” Yesterday, after such a phone exchange, I called her back to check to make sure that my saying those things wasn’t upsetting her. As I said, not everyone has my sense of humor. Nevertheless, when I have called to check how my friends are doing with the news of my cancer, I have uniformly been told that I shouldn’t be worrying about them because I have enough to worry about.
I would like to refer you back to yesterday’s posts…I only have to worry if I think about the future, and realistically, no one knows how I (Merle) will respond to chemo/radiation or the surgery. No one knows if the CT scan that did not show any metastasis or infiltration by the cancer into the lymph systems was 100% accurate. No one knows if I will defy the odds and be a 1-, 5-, 10-year (or more) survivor of this cancer. Folks can certainly worry about those things, but worrying will not change the fact that for each and every one of those outcomes, my chances are either 0 or 1 — I either have metastases or not; I will either be a 5-year survivor or not. Worrying about it will NOT change that outcome.
What I can do, then, is try to make my life, today, better. I choose to do this by making other people’s lives better. That is why I do my work at CDC: to help better understand the roots of youth violence, sexual violence, and intimate partner violence: so that others might use my work to help prevent these forms of interpersonal aggression. That is why I am Boy Scout leader: to help the youth in my troop, in general, and my sons, in particular, grow and develop really positive skills and become leaders themselves. That is why I teach karate: to help the youth and adults I teach to develop their physical fitness, their coordination, and their confidence. That is why I work with the youth at my church: to help give them a forum to think about and voice their opinions (religious or otherwise), to help instill a sense of morality, to help them become better people.
So when I think people are suffering as a result of my illness, I will do what I can to cheer them up — help them feel better. It’s who I am. I am not so much trying to “fix” the problem, but trying to help others help me; it’s a lot easier to “stay positive” and be of good cheer when those around me are positive and not looking at me and worrying about the future. (So in a way, I’m just being selfish when I try to cheer people up!) Today, I choose to enjoy the glass!
To paraphrase the play, Evita: “Don’t cry for me my friends….I’m not dead yet!” (I’m feeling better! I think I’ll go for a walk! I’m Happy! I’m Happy! — this last parenthetical is much funnier in my head, where I can ‘hear’ the British accents delivering these lines! Here’s a link to the Monty Python clip)
Merle
Tags: Cancer News, church, Main, Merle, On my honor, I will try, The Martial Arts, Theology/Philosophy, Work by Merle
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