Breathe Life.

I’m weak and tired. I feel like I could lay around all day with the cool weather swarming outside my window. The breeze flows through and I just lay there, taking in the sounds and the smells around me, my dogs sleeping next to me. Its restful here, my body feels wasted, my head heavy. Sometimes I wonder what is left here for me, is this my life now, feeble and fragile, wasting away. I don’t want to become a burden. Exhausting and draining on the ones I love. It has to be my greatest fear. I want to be vital and self-sufficient.

I am not afraid to cross over. I am simply not ready to leave everyone behind yet. I have more living to do, I just have to get my body to agree and come back to me. I know with unwavering certainty that a better life awaits me on the other side of this world and that the fabric between those worlds is becoming shredded and torn. I see the other side clearly sometimes; its magnificence and beauty. It’s very real and inviting. But its there, and I’m here. I’m not ready to take the step yet. And I don’t believe that its time. I’ll know, and I’ll be ready. And those that love me will be ready too. And that hasn’t happened yet. There are so many things left unsaid, tasks yet to be done, experiences that I haven’t created yet. It’s just not time.

On the whole, the symptoms seem to be improving. The shaking isn’t so bad anymore, but the weakness and lack of feeling on my right side is incredibly evident. I am cautious when I walk, my confident stride all but gone. I noticed today some numbness on the left side of my face, which would correspond with the tumor in the back right side of my head. The doctor has indicated that the radiation can cause increased swelling in the brain and perhaps that is what is happening. It makes me wonder sometimes about the cure being as traumatic as the disease. What symptoms are from the cancer, and which are from the cure. Which will leave me permanently damaged, and which will bring me back to life. It’s anybody’s guess right now. I am a very complex science experiment, anxiously awaiting outcome.

It’s the unknown sometimes that gets to me. The not knowing what is going to happen next. The inability to make plans beyond the next few weeks. I have to wait at least a month after radiation to have another brain MRI, so in the meantime, we wait and see. We see if the symptoms continue to subside or if they return or worsen. We have another CT of my chest, pelvis and abdomen in late June to hope that it hasn’t decided to come back anyplace else. We wait and see. We pray. We hope. And in the meantime, I try to live the best life I can under the circumstances. I pray for another day to breathe, another day to share and another day to love.

My birthday is on Sunday, and we are planning a family BBQ. I have ordered all my favorite foods, and will eat at least one bite of each, savoring the flavors, the sounds, the sights, reveling in the love around me. Its bittersweet, my birthday. For in my heart I wonder if it shall be my last. I pray it is not, and that I have many birthdays left inside, but we are not guaranteed anything but the breath we take right now. None of us is guaranteed a tomorrow on this earth. Not me. Not you. There are no guarantees. Regardless of whether or not you have a brain tumor. We cannot gauge which breath will be the last one we will take, which beat in which our heart stops.

So for now we must savor this moment, bite into life with a gusto that comes from contemplation of your own mortality. Take it in. Breathe life. From every fiber of your being, breathe it in.