Hour of Grace

(This is something I submitted to a magazine; unfortunately it never made it to print...so it has found it's place in the blogosphere)


I have lived 29 years. Twenty nine years of weathering the variable climate that is life. Twenty nine years and, though I can’t recall exactly when, somewhere along the way I must have grown up. As I was standing in line at the pharmacy, all of a sudden it hit me: When in the world did I become an adult?

It’s not a question that warrants an answer, but it is a pretty remarkable thing to suddenly feel the weight of your years. Because we pass our days inside ourselves, peering through our own private window into the world. And it’s so easy to get trapped here. We carry whole universes within us as we brush past one another to read the back of a jar of peanut butter.

And then as suddenly as you turn the corner into your apartment with a handful of groceries, as soon as you see it written on his face that the news is not good, the moment he tells you there are three tumors pushing against his lungs…stage two…lymphoma…more tests… In the briefest moment - a speck of dust on the corridor of your lifetime – everything has changed. Your husband has cancer.

The strange thing about being hit with the enormity of cancer and all its repercussions is that the world still turns. Life goes on. Time moves forward and days pass. Things are exactly as they always have been, yet the ground beneath us has shifted. Privately our lives have been forever stained. In a sense it is disquieting to walk into a world that is blinded by the rhythm of the status quo. It feels that this enormous change in our lives should be causing a ripple. Our distressed hearts and their battle wounds should be visible.

But I don’t need to prove my broken heart. The world is an endless net of broken hearts. Everyone is going through something. Each one of your lives is a language I do not know. Yet we are all made of the same compelling thread. It is the act of living that unravels the mystery.

It’s hard to believe when we are hurting, angry, in pain, that all we ever need is before us, around us, within us. But I see now that it’s true. I look at Angelo and know this is true. I know it is true when I come home to him every day and fall sweetly into the miracle of his presence.

Many people have asked how we are dealing or how we've stayed strong. Day by day we learn how to deal. We put one foot in front of the other. We wake up in the morning and do life. We love each other every moment of every day and with the ferocity of all that we were made of. We laugh. We learn that no amount of thinking can eliminate the pain (and wonder) that comes with living. We discover that (the ultimate cliché) life is precious. And impermanent.

I marvel at Angelo’s strength. He is inexorably powerful, so much larger than his body. Yes, chemo was wretched, but he faced it squarely and kicked its ass right back. Ultimately, it is not the tissue of our humanity that defeats us, and Angelo bravely lives from the deep resources of heart and spirit and gratitude. He lives from the center of the seed of spirit that connects us all together, one and the same.

I draw from Angelo’s strength. He is so much stronger than his twenty nine years. And as I look back on mine, I wonder if perhaps, while standing in line at the pharmacy waiting to refill yet another prescription, I wasn’t peering through my own private window into adulthood. Perhaps I wasn’t feeling the weight of my years, but rather the magnitude of new beginnings. For even now, in all of our uncertainties, heartache, and unexpected moments of joy, I can’t help but feel that this sense of growing up is the hour of grace when all things gather and distill to create the rest of our lives.