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 |   My journey through (and beyond) the valley with Cancer as my companion. |
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Dear Friend: This is not a Blog about writing! (I already have one of those.) This is a blog about a journey I am taking with illness. I have recently been diagnosed with Cancer. My goal is honest therapy as I progress through, and beyond this new reality in my life. I hope that, somewhere along the way you will find some words that will help you too. While this is, in fact, an interactive Blog, I hope that you will scroll slowly down this page. For you see, the front of this Blog IS my journey. The entries are conversations that are held along the journey.Yes, there is a lot on it--before actually getting to the Blog entries. But, I hope that by the objects and words which appear before the Blog itself, you might come to understand just a little bit about me, and my journey, and some truly amazing friends who have agreed to journey with me. I hope that you, too, will choose to accompany me on my walk--through the Valley. I invite you to join me, and discover the wondrous truths, meet some truly amazing people, and share those "memorable" moments this journey will undoubtedly present. Come along, won't you? In His Care, ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Would you like to help me help others? I found this amazing organization, and I am proud to be a sponsor. I hope you will check it out. It's called The Network For Good.  ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** "RISUS OMNIA - INCRUMENTUS PER DEDECUS - SAPIENTIA PER DAMNUM" ("Every thing is funny - Growth through humiliation - Wisdom through loss") ~Leunig~ The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse. ~Helen Keller~ "If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." ~Virginia Woolf~ ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** "There is strength in truth." ~The Barton Family Crest~ ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” — Helen Keller, American social activist, public speaker and author (1880-1968) I have moved the list of my thanks for those who have helped to make this little Blog so very special. I hope that you will take a moment to read the list, growing every day, and let these fellow travellers along this journey know that you appreciate the contributions they make to our walk together.
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Please feel free to click on the Blog Rings icon below to be transported to some of the very best of the Best Bloggers around WDC. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** If you are new to WDC, or to our Blogging community, I highly recommend the monthly edition of "The Blogville News". Feel free to click below, and let Scarlett   know that a Blogger sent ya!Hey! We've started a Christian's Blog Ring on WDC. Click on the logo, and join us! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Budroe
 Ring LeaderI have three publications at the moment. Here is a link to purchase my latest one. Buy a great read, and help a fellow writer out, Okay?  ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| This isn't an update. But, today I got one. I wasn't alone. It wasn't good. Right now, I'm pretty ... well a lot of pretties, to be honest. This hasn't happened very often for me on this particular journey. More than perhaps I have wanted, or have been willing to admit to myself or anyone else. Patients have a really intense ability of awareness when things aren't going well, or even as they should be going. It's not very often, but on this day I wish I could really ambulate myself away from today. I'd want to leave the huge garbage bag full of the vulgarities I'm spewing in my head. I don't need to write a blog entry about this in order to legitimize either it, me, or what I am feeling at the moment. It's kind of silly to be writing this at all, to be honest. I already know it, so I'm not informing any of my selves about new news. It has, this day, all the makings of a hubungous pity party, this day does. This day will pass, and I will arrive on the other side of it in whatever shape I arrive in. You see, sometimes the beyond we who are called to this journey can only see, or hope for, is measured in the sweep of a clock, not a calendar. If I were to put down the maelstrom in my head with the accuracy of an honest and ethical reporter, SM would lock this baby down faster than saying "Pea Soup" and the amount of time my brain would show me a picture of Lynda Blair. (I hope you got that. Not even I will make a second pass on that one.) So why not cuss, and fume, and strike out and hit something just to hurt it? Since when does my position in anything, anywhere require manners, or gentility? Is it too hard? Is it always unacceptable? By whose standards, anyway? I'm entitled. I've earned it. The answer comes when the vaunted title of "integrity" sashays into the room. It's not that I don't know enough vulgarity to fill multiple volumes of naval novels, mind you. Must this pain be this private even now, here? Yeah, 'fraid so. Listen up. It's important. This matters. If you simply refuse to take my word for it, ask someone you know and respect, like and admire even. Ask SM, or SMS. Or one of my all time greatest heroes. Ask Jack. The answer lies in a reality that, although I am the only one who knows the truth of it to the point of not giving one tinker's ....well, here it is. That's not who this person is. No matter what, I just can't lose that. It isn't about good, or anything else. It's about losing the "me" I know me to be in this moment, even for a moment. That little moment of whatever that me is has taken at least one lifetime to develop, know, understand, and (to whatever degree) accept. That little guy in the jail in the center of my soul has been worth fighting the world for for all my life. It's gotta be true now, too.It's just got to. That's the only way to the "beyond" part of the journey. Anybody called on, or to stand witness to a journey like this will tell you, if they are being really honest, that what I am saying is not just "a" truth. It is "the" truth of the whole thing. It is the only truth that matters. I've seen countless people lose that truth in a moment. They most usually just don't recover from that moment's loss. It's a tipping point; a turning point. No matter who they are the instant before, they are someone, something else in the moment after. One step. One pace. One breath, and they can't recover back to the moment before. That is not who I wish to be, either. You see, in the course of the arc of history across the ages, I'm so much less than merely insignificant. I hope you really wouldn't tell me you had no idea I knew this. You'd be so very, very wrong. Yet, here today, in this, that moment, knowing as well as I do the only human available, willing, and able to provide even the most casual support at this particular moment is me, it is no less a terrifying and shattering moment. Why am I writing this? Because that is who I am. That is what I do. I am a writer. Writers write. Every day. No matter what. As sorely as we wish others to acknowledge our words in a positive and meaningful way, we cannot subrogate ourselves to something we are not. We cannot abrogate our identities upon some stone with a mountain man bravado as we declare righteously our much anticipated return. I would've been fine had it just been me. Well, it wasn't. Someone elses were there in the mix, too. That has me wanting to lay down a field of fire whose smoke would not rise more than a foot for more than a lifetime. You see, we on this particular journey can even negotiate our way to "okay", just so long as it is we who must do the negotiating and the accepting. When some other someone, someone else must be a contractual entity, our only hope is that we will somehow be able to pull that particular feat off without so much as a sneeze, or snort. When it is someone whose every moment of life is all about selfless service, or simply an innocent on a battlefield...that gets dark quickly. It's that dark inside me today. Today is, truly, one of THOSE days. I do truly hate and detest these days that are THOSE days on this journey. You need to know that everyone who must see days like this, one of THOSE days, should have some kind of magical ripcord they can pull and escape for 24 hours. Be it a potion, lotion, pill or pablum is of no consequence; just so long as it is real, accurate, and pain free. These times are not times where tomorrow matters. There is no tomorrow on these days. Next breath is too long. Next step is a foggy, briney deep too far. A very dear friend happened to walk into one of these days in my presence on his journey. Before either of us knew it, he had been lost. He became a victim. He would for the remainder of his days, never escape the vortex of being "Patient". He lost his battle, his faith, and the measure of his life in that moment. It happens. That's what you need to know. That's what I need for you to hear, and understand. We must prepare for this moment. That is the only way we can hope to survive it, or to journey beyond it. Doing what must be instinctive when this day is one of THOSE days is nothing more than a coin flip. We do, or we don't. There is no "try". (Thanks, Yoda!) Sometimes, days of THOSE days can string themselves together into weeks, or months, or years. That's a very particular kind of hell. That's one of those times when men's or women's souls can break forever. If anyone on this journey has a chance of surviving THOSE days these days, this is one thing that simply cannot be misunderstood. Things change after days like this. For my friend, he somehow tripped, clawed, cried, got just incredibly angry, and found resources within himself to make it though his first encounter with days like this. His very personal, mostly silent (Thankfully, because what came out of his mouth when he wasn't silent tore the fabric of the Universe. Believe it!) battle finally brought him victory over his deepest valley experiences. He wasn't around long after that victory was put in the books, and I spent a lot of time being just incredibly mad about that. I got to being thankful, but it was just one hell of a hike. I wish I had his style, courage, and resolve. No way, not this cowboy. Not today. And that is kind of sad, really. Today is when having his qualities, faith and hopeful spirit would really come in handy. You know...one of THOSE days. In His Care, Budroe |
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