Facing Death...dum de dum dum

Death is such an ugly topic, no matter who you are.  It's depressing, messy, convoluted, and affects everyone, if they're honest about it, in some deeply personal way.  Thing is, I used to think the idea of my own death didn't affect me.  Contemplating my own death was like contemplating some other major life event, but it did not inspire any deep emotional reaction.  I guess I always hoped and kind of presumed that my death, when it happened, would mean something.  That somehow it would give back to the world something it would have otherwise lost, and would therefore make my death 'ok', or at least would come in a time and way that was acceptable to me.

Except that facing death now strips me of all those illusions.  If I die of cancer (I have stage IV lung cancer), then it will render my death somewhat...well... meaningless.  Sure, maybe some insights or something I've learned while contemplating death by cancer will help someone in some vague way, but is that really enough to justify taking my life away from me?  I have ranted and railed internally against the idea of having my death be so meaningless, bear so little fruit, and to be forced upon me when I haven't lived the fulfilling life I've wanted to yet.  Not that any of those tantrums have borne good fruit.

To me, a good death only really happens in one of three ways:

1. I've lived a long and fulfilling life, growing old with my spouse, kids and grand kids around me, with a lifetime of great memories to comfort me in my last days.
2. I choose to die in order to save someone else.  Sacrifice is a worthy way to die.
3. My death is accidental and quick. I never saw it coming, did not plan on it and was never prepared for it, but at least it happened quickly.

Dying slowly by cancer in my middle-age years doesn't fit into any of those criteria, and I have had a very difficult time accepting the possibility that this ordeal is somehow ok. I can't say, even now, that the idea is ok with me, and that I accept it with grace and humility.  Because deep down I really don't.  I am struggling through the issues of why that is the case, but it seems there is a laundry list of reasons. And maybe that's the point.  Maybe I'm going through this, in part at least, to see the list of reasons, understand them, dissect them, and at least make some steps forward to moving past them.  I have argued against the possibility, gotten angry at the universe, and been altogether just plain stubborn about accepting it, but have eventually come to mostly accept the reality of my death happening, out of my control and far from my desires.  I've learned a lot along this journey, which I wanted to type down to help make some sense of my own head.

Death is scary

For starters, I found that I really was somehow afraid to die.  I had this very strong and palpable fear of dying by cancer that I didn't see, appreciate, and certainly didn't understand for a long time. Then one day I decided to confront that fear head-on and delve into understanding what was driving that fear.  After some soul-searching, I came to realize that there was a part of me, I don't know if it was conscious or in the sub-conscious, nevertheless a very real and potent part of myself really loathed myself.  I was a self-loather.  And not the once in a while type, either.  There was a strong and constant part of myself that reinforced self-loathing every chance it could.  At the core, I think I didn't believe my life had any real value to it anyways, and dying would only cause me to confront that in the next life.  That I had tons of flaws that disqualified me from God's love, and therefore was devoid of any remote chance to love myself.

I have come to believe that almost the entire make-up of the world is geared around the idea of planting the lie deep inside each one of us that we are worthless.  That our lives and our very existence are worthless.  That we have no inherent value, no matter what we do or how hard we try.  This lie is planted early, and reinforced in many outright and subtle ways, every day, unless we are extremely self-aware and vigilant to reject it, every time we are presented with that idea.

Because the truth is the very opposite notion!  Every single person who has ever been born on this planet has infinite worth - beyond our understanding and even imagination.  Our eternal destinies are too grand to even begin to comprehend in this life, and our worth stems from Who we came from - our Father in Heaven - and cannot be diminished by our foolish or self-destructive acts.  It just can't.  So, I saw this dark and well, disgusting part of myself, and got rid of it. And I am constantly vigilant about allowing it creep itself back into who I am.

The power of God is real

The second thing I've learned is that the power of God is a real, tangible, and unstoppable force.  We'd all like to believe that we can be unstoppable at times, but sooner or later we figure out we have limits and are subject to pain. God's power, on the other hand, truly is unstoppable and unchangeable.  I have felt His power in my life like never before during this time, and I know that if He commands something, it must be obeyed by whatever He commands, if it has no free will.  For us, we can choose.  For literally everything else in the universe that lacks free will (the rocks, trees, etc.), God's command must be obeyed.

This includes my cancer cells, I believe.  If God so wills it, then I could be healed in an instant, but where's the fun in that I guess, right?  I am an imperfect being with so much to learn, and so little time to learn it.  I think of God using times of pain and turmoil to improve us like I would wring water out of a cloth.  If I do it well, there isn't a drop left.  And when God is done with our times of trial, He's wrung all He can out of us for our benefit, painful as the wringing might have been.

Unfortunately for us, some of the best environments for learning are found within tremendous turmoil.  Affliction and turmoil seem to have this incredible effect of stripping pride and arrogance out of a person, if only briefly, so that the truth can worm itself into his being.  The Atonement is best applied in my life when I am near defeat and in full realization of my incredible shortcomings and failures.  God steps in and reminds me who I am to Him, and that somehow makes all the pain worthwhile, changing me just a little bit to become more like Him along the way.  I am grateful that the power of God can be felt on the earth, and that I have been so touched by it.

Optimism is a choice

Early on in this cancer saga, my wife and I both felt strongly impressed that I would be healed of my cancer.  I, personally, received this assurance very clearly and seemingly straight from God Himself a few times early on, and it helped me to face the coming months of chemo and other health problems with optimism and determination. This meant, to me, that I would see a steady progression back to something approximating good health, and then one day all would just be well. Shows what I know, I guess, because once again, God has shown me the false premise in my reasoning. The cancer began to grow again, months after the first diagnosis (almost a year).  I got a CT scan not too long ago that clearly showed growth in one of the tumors. 

This devastated and rocked my world, really causing me to look straight down the barrel of my own death in a way I never have before, because I felt like it could really happen and in a way I did not agree with.  I let the depression come in, the despair wash over me, and I contemplated suicide, but in a way that no one would find out so that my family could get life insurance.  Dark and ugly thoughts. I thought about what it would take for me to take my own life, so that I would not slowly waste away from my cancer and eventually find myself unable to breathe and die.

I learned a lot about myself during this time, ultimately really paying attention to what streams of thought lead me to joy and peace, and what streams did not.  Thinking about suicide did not help me in any way.  Thinking that I was going to die of cancer had almost the same affect.  However, viewing the growth as something that could be overcome did bring me joy and peace, and I slowly chose, time and again, to cling to those thoughts, rather than the dark ones.  I chose the path of peace and joy, over and over again because that's what it takes.  Moments of doubt will pop their little heads in from time to time and I found that each time I have a choice of whether to follow the doctrine of the doubt, or the doctrine that had already led me to peace and joy.  This is easy when the two doctrines clearly oppose one another, but is more difficult when they only slightly diverge in their paths.  In those cases, I have learned to follow the path to see where it goes, but to pay sharp attention to where it leads me.  Over time, the destination of peace and joy, or confusion, doubt, worry, depression, and sadness becomes very clear and the choice of peace can be clearly made.

So, I'd moved on, or so I thought, from feelings of doubt and depression until today (as I type this) when I just got an MRI that showed that I have at least 10 lesions on my brain.  All those doubts just seemed to come rushing back and I find that I've had to dismiss each one again.  But they each seem to have less punch and are more easily discerned as garbage than the first time.  That being said, I do not have it all figured out.  Am I going to survive this?  Will I live to see my children married?  To see my grandchildren?  To grow old with my wife?  I don't know, and I may never know any of that until it happens because life's ending I think is meant to be unknowable for many of us.  Knowing how and when you're going to die tends to suck the fun out of the between life and death times.  I don't know when I'll die, but I am optimistic that it may not be for a long time.

Optimism, as it turns out, is a choice.  It is more easily made with a lot of other factors helping you, like because the sun has risen my whole life, every day without fail, I am optimistic that it will rise again tomorrow.  That's easy.  However, I've never been through cancer.  I've never felt it ravage my lungs, and then felt it disappear completely from my body.  I've never been told by a doctor that I have 1.5 years to live, and then lived another 40 or so.  I've never done any of those things, and I don't personally know any one else who has either, so I have no experience, direct or shared, that helps to bolster my choice to be optimistic about my life.  However, all of that being said, I still choose to hope for the best.  Not to pretend the worst won't happen, but to presume that I don't know everything and that things can change, either directly because of something I do, someone else does, or some other force comes into my life and makes everything better.

I am overcome by the world, but God overcame the world

We all live in this world, rich or poor, smart or not-so-smart, beautiful or just beautiful on the inside, and this world is designed to destroy us.  Every bit of it from the moment we are born is trying to tear us down, make us feel bad about ourselves and then to make others feel bad about themselves, and then to ultimately just kill us.  It's unavoidable, and we will all be forced to succumb to the world one day or another.  I am no exception to this rule, and cancer has come into my life, provided by the world I live in, to destroy me and overcome me in any way that it can.  Ultimately, I have no choice in this matter.  Something I try might work to kill it for a while, or I might even find a way to get rid of it altogether, but if it has it's way as it has with so many others, I will be overcome.


However, there is great solace for me in knowing that I may be overcome by the world, but Jesus Christ overcame the entire world, and everything bad that could ever come about by living in it, and He did it all for me.  And for you. And for all of us!  As bad as the world may influence us, He has overcome all of that and through Him, we can also experience not being overcome by the world.  But only through Him.  There is no other way, but the way is clear and beautiful to experience.  I know that if my cancer is defeated it will be because Jesus Christ suffered for me, specifically, just as He has for each of us.

This isn't fair.  Life isn't fair

I don't know why, but I seem to be built with the idea somehow that life needs to be fair. And not even purely 'fair' from a logical standpoint, but fair in my favor 'fair'.  I don't deserve to get cancer, so why do I have it?  What did I do to bring this curse upon me? If you're a Biblical person, then you know that there are many instances when the actions of certain people bring requisite cursings down from heaven upon them, and they end up suffering for what they've done. My problem is that I apply that idea generally, out of context, and too harshly on myself (again, because I'm worthless).  The notion that God is anything other than a God of love results from misunderstanding the scriptures, the world, and my life among all those things.  So this means that the idea that God is not a God of love is reinforced on a daily basis, all the time, from pretty much everything around me.  I mean, just look at the news every day for a week and it's easy to become convinced that God does not care about His children here.

However, God is love.  God loves me and each of His children more than we can fathom.  I have felt his direct love for me on more than one occasion, and it's a feeling so sacred and wonderful I cannot express it adequately, nor do I think anyone can, no matter their wordsmith level.  It gives life meaning, stability, and direction where I would otherwise be lost.  And all of this to know that life is not fair.  It's just not meant to be fair.  It's meant to shape each person and give them opportunities to become the best version of themselves, and that means some pretty crappy things are going to happen because we need pain to change.

So getting cancer isn't fair.  But it's also not because of anything that I did or didn't do.  It's not because of something my family did or didn't do.  And - this is the kicker - it's most likely not even God's will that I get it.  However, God can use it, and I can use it to better myself.  It's not fair, but thank goodness life isn't fair in general or I'd really be screwed.  Just think of all of your flaws, that you know of, and then imagine being viewed by the perfect judge - there's no coming back from such a meeting without knowing that we all deserve far worse than we generally get in this life.  And I know that as crappy as this all is for me, there are so many others out there suffering a far worse fate than I am, for far longer, with no support, and little to no hope of positive change.  My heart goes out to you!

These thoughts and feelings that I've expressed are really just the rants and ramblings of a guy struggling to make sense of his place in the world, and secure some idea of life in the next.  I don't have all the answers; in fact, I feel that I have very few answers, but I do know that I feel like I will be ok with whatever happens.  If the cancer ends up winning, I'll be ok with that.  I won't love the idea and look forward to it, but I'll accept it.  If I end up healing and able to look back on all this 30 years from now, then I'll do that as well, and hopefully with a smile on my face.  No matter what happens, I know God is with me, and that together we can get through it all.