Testing yourself

We test ourselves everyday, but the sick test their wills and their bodies everyday. As we are tested by them. We do not what the day will bring, what new pains, or old sorrows will re-emerge from livers or brains, arms or legs. We do not know where we will be at the end of the day. We know only that the struggle is there before us, as the sunrise is. It can be met with drawn shades or its light on our faces, it is up to us. The last scene of DH Lawrence's Sons and Lovers has Paul Morel staring at the dark of the night and into the lights of the city. He chooses light and walks back to the city. We choose our paths, though not always well, and some of them are chosen for us, and we must survive their passages and struggle the rocky slopes and muddy depths that they offer to us. We may emerge at a road of our choosing afterwards. Roads offer both choices and destinies.

Cancer is a destiny, though not in a good way. The gravel and stone that cut our feet along that path, offer us their scars after. We may accept their offerings as we choose. We may choose to never look at our soles again, to turn away from the bright scars, and toss aside the memories of trodden paths. We may also learn to admire our scars as we sit on the edges of our beds in the evening, not worrying, as we once did, what pains the next day will bring. Hrothgar, in the great epic Beowulf tells the hero, "If you emerge alive from this undertaking you will want for nothing." (Beowulf, p. 42) We may emerge alive, we may not. We forget the pain, but remember the scars. We cannot choose this destiny, only stare at the path ahead and tread the stones, hoping the cuts will not pain us too much.

We test ourselves with our lives. At sunrise we yawn and wonder what will hurt today, and maybe even hoping that today will be pain-free. Cancer is life magnified, cells that give life slowly taking it away.

Well the test continues. We write this test with blood and tears in pens made with our marrow. Hopefully we will pass. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring summer vacations with friends on beaches. Until then we write our illness in our memories and with our pain in diaries of perhaps shortened lives, closing the covers until tomorrow.

References:

The photo here can be found at www.ippp.dur.ac.uk

Beowulf translated by David Wright. Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth. 1960.