A traveler almost always goes forth, along the way that he is forced to travel or chooses to travel, with burdens. We are accustomed to thinking of that word, \u2018burden\u2019, with pejorative connotations. To give someone a burden is to somehow give something which is unwanted, pleasant, heavy or light, but a burden still is not seen in the same light as the word, \u2018gift.\u2019 A gift can be a burden as well. Ask anyone who makes a shopping trip to an outlet mall and finds everything that they didn\u2019t know they had a pressing and dire need and they will answer in the affirmative that all of the delightful purchases did indeed carry a cost. In this sense, the cost is the additional weight one must carry on a bus, plane or train or walking back to lodgings. Indeed, we have words we use in context which fall short of their definitive uses.<\/p>\n
Another word, \u2018journey,\u2019 is meant to imply a trip to a geographical location. A few miles or a few thousand miles and the word is thought to have application in this sense. In the ideological sense it is possible and probably to travel, to make a journey, from locales as different as night and day and still remain unchanged. Eating the same food, speaking the same language, and observing the same cultural rules. Life goes on as if the journey never occurred. Why shouldn\u2019t it? What has changed other than an address?<\/p>\n
I lived more than 46 years of life at an astonishingly rapid pace. Of course, there were times when my movements were constricted by events, which must be observed such as pregnancy. But having never been sick, or confined or imprisoned, I was free to run through every moment without too much thought. Nothing ever seemed to touch me. I was never all the way present in any environment because my mind was already at the point at which my body would join, some time later, in the future. I was not in motion. I was motion. Cancer, a diagnosis of a terminal cancer, halted that pace. Thinking upon it now I don\u2019t believe that anything except this particular type of cancer, one in which there were precious few who lived past three years, could have stopped me. The only other thing, which would have eventually slowed my pace would be old age. And yet, today I sit, wondering if I will arrive at that point in my journey. Old age, to me, after all of these months of sitting and thinking, is more of a destination and not a state of being.<\/p>\n
I, like so many others I suppose, had grown to think of old age as a time of sicknesses and isolation. But as I aged through my thirties and half of my forties I was still a very young person. No diabetes and no arthritis and very few instances of illness where even an antibiotic was necessary for healing had been part of my physiological resume. I had been blessed and never took the time to thank God or even consider the weight of good health. I had come to life bouncing, brown and healthy. I had grown to maturity nicely shaped and attractive. I had long legs. I had most of the things that other girls go and pay doctors to inject, nip and tuck. In my defense I thought of these things, specifically being attractive, as a burden and to be brutally honest I thought of being attractive as a curse. In my experiences I have been told and shown that pretty girls, pretty Black girls, are to follow a certain script if they are to maintain friends and good relations. If I was going to be a successful pretty Black girl I would have to learn these rules and learn them well if I ever wanted to be included in milestones such as other girls\u2019 weddings. I never thought too much about looks. No, it\u2019s true. I didn\u2019t. I had grown up in a pretty family and these things weren\u2019t emphasized as much as being smart, a good Christian, keeping a good home and being a good mother. In my world, ruled by my grandmother, good looks couldn\u2019t pay a mortgage so they were nothing in which I should invest too much time.<\/p>\n
Good looks, to me, were just another burden. Something which became a reason to hurt my feelings. To be ostracized due to other girls\u2019 lies. Something which required me to know every game, ruse, or scheme a male could conceive for a few moments of pleasure (for him). I wouldn\u2019t ask God to remove the burden but I wasn\u2019t holding too many parties to honour my own image. And besides, I had the kind of looks which drew the wrong kind of attention. Where I grew up, in urban St. Louis, this was the source of so much grief. Grief and abandonment, which on one occasion, were the impetus which lead me to try and take my own life. I wanted to die, to leave this Earth, just one year before the diagnosis which would lead to an epiphany regarding this gift of life itself. I wanted to live after they told me I was going to die. And I wanted to live in such a way that others would see and know that their lives were worth living as well. Our lives are journeys and the words of doctors, somber deliverances of confirmation of disease, can sometimes be the final burden in a lifetime without freedom from bondage to the consequences of events which preceded birth. Skin color, in my country, is another burden. Gender, being a woman, is a burden as well. They are all alternatively heavy and light, assets or detractors, there are very few things which are only one thing: good or evil.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve come to know that this cancer isn\u2019t my only burden. After the diagnosis I was still a mother, a daughter, sister, lover and friend. There were still papers to write and dishes to wash. Although it is much easier now my thoughts aren\u2019t occupied, only occupied, by cancer. I have plans. I have dreams. I have goals. Some have changed in respect to what I can and cannot do. Where I can and cannot go. But I am still very much alive and involved and in motion. Not nearly as rapid but in motion just the same. I am moving towards a destination which may have been into a harder mark to reach but it\u2019s still there. Waiting for me. It\u2019s still there.<\/p>\n
My life is a journey. Cancer does not end the journey. Cancer didn\u2019t end the journey the day the doctor told me and in the seven or eight or is even ten months which have passed, I have still been very much engaged in things other than this disease. A terminal diagnosis does not mean that the disease can be the only cause of cessation.<\/p>\n
On May 31, 2013 I was in my apartment when a tornado touched down and took off the roof. My son, Grant, was at home with me. We held each other, arms and legs wrapped around and through arms and legs, as our peripheral vision caught, from ten feet away, the roof of our apartment being lifted, piece by piece, up and off and away. My journey would have ended if I had gone up with the roof and the cause would not have been cancer. Just the same as if the tornado had taken place before my diagnosis. It\u2019s possible, on any day, at any time, I have learned, to be free from this life and have the journey end. It\u2019s not necessary to form a bond between the end of my life and cancer as there are too many other instances of exit.<\/p>\n
I think the problem comes when we believe that life must have an average span. Seventy years old is old and I thought, again like most people, that there was an age at which death is acceptable. From my vantage point that thinking is ludicrous. Does the child of a seventy year old parent miss him any less than the child of a forty year old parent? No one can answer that question so the concept of dying too soon or before one\u2019s time becomes one which is bound by very few facts. Especially when we say \u201cbefore one\u2019s time.\u201d This implies that there is a guarantee on a certain number of decades. No human owns time so how can we say that anyone goes before his time? I don\u2019t know. You see, the fact that I am no longer moving at a rapid pace physically does not mean that my mind is not active. Losing my ability to have a high energy level twelve or so hours a day for five or six days a week was at first, for me, a tragedy. I cried so many tears of frustration when I would grow tired after only being awake three or four hours. I have learned to appreciate those few hours, those quiet hours, as I can feel my spirit growing. Sad to say that I required a time out in order to grow up. But it\u2019s true. I would have never come to this spiritual, emotional and psychological precipice if cancer was not a burden placed upon my shoulders to carry as I went on my way.<\/p>\n
There are burdens we choose to carry and there are burdens, such as being very good looking, that we are given. There are burdens we can easily lay down and there are some which carry a lifetime commitment of service. Having children and accepting the role of mother or father is a burden of commitment. And the more I think about it I am starting to believe that marriage is also a lifetime commitment to carry or to assist in carrying all burdens. Now, I always believed that marriage was a sacred covenant between a man and a woman and their God. But I also believed that there were many reasons that the covenant could and should be broken. Not so now. I have been given, by my former spouse, assistance in carrying this burden. He can\u2019t take the pain away. And he can\u2019t eat for me or walk for me. But he does try to make me as comfortable as possible. He tries to take away some of the things I was carrying and as a friend he also helps me to decide what I can bear. If he stopped tomorrow I would not blame him. And even if he did stop I have learned a lesson of a lifetime and I hope to carry this lesson to anyone with ears to hear. We are, in the covenant of marriage, to assist each other. We are to sacrifice for each other and we are never, in callous disregard, to increase the burdens our spouse must bear. Whether it is an addiction or public humiliation or what we do behind closed doors, we are not to increase the obstacles placed in the way of our closest fellow traveler. We\u2019re not allowed. It\u2019s just that simple. Never.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Just another burden to bear. Good burden or bad burden, makes no difference. The bad burden may call out the beauty in another person or traveler calling it a fight summons an energy which is detrimental. Didn\u2019t someone say \u201cwar is hell?\u201d Cancer isn\u2019t the best reality but to call it hell is extreme in too many instances. I do feel as if I have had nights in hell but I cannot say that it is a sentence to perpetual hell. For instance, in the American Civil War 700,000 men died in the fight but it was still left to nine men to sit down and craft the 13th<\/sup>, 14th<\/sup>, and 15th<\/sup> Amendments to the United States Constitution. I always wonder why did so many people have to die in order to arrive at the point which should have been reached through conversation and debate. Cancer shouldn\u2019t have a lexicon rooted in war or hell as there is no legislation and neither is there a truce. I can\u2019t keep thinking of anything, let alone cancer, as a fight. I used to see race as a fight and this meant that I always had to be on an insufferable, unbearable red alert. It hurt me to do this to be in this state. Passing up the beauty in others in order to avoid any incidence of pain and conflict. I\u2019ve come to know that I am indeed on a journey and all things I bear can be seen as either tools to use to help me to reach my destination. \u201cIt\u2019s just another day\u2019s journey and I\u2019m glad,\u201d are the opening words of a gospel song I first heard as a child. The choir would follow \u201cand I\u2019m glad\u201d and later, \u201cI\u2019m glad about it.\u201d And the singer would answer, \u201cI\u2019m so glad, yes I am.\u201d That\u2019s is exactly the way I need to define this disease and my life. The life is a journey and the disease is just another burden along the way.<\/p>\n And there are other phrases which make me sit back and think, really think, about the way I\u2019ve been taught to view this disease. If I die while this disease is active it will be said that I lost my fight. How can I lose a fight I didn\u2019t start? Or a war that wasn\u2019t declared? Just how do I fight cancer anyway? Do you understand what I\u2019m trying to tell you? I hope you do. I refuse to say that I\u2019m fighting cancer for this would mean that I was fighting my own body. It gives me peace to know that one day this journey will end. Not just this particular burden but all burdens, gifts, everything you carry with you on the way requires and adjustment. Shifting, deleting, moving some things around. Shoving some things together to make them more compact or dissection of an entire burden that you no longer need or no longer wish to carry. There is no winning or losing as these terms are the property of contest and fight. Pick this up, journey further. Lay this down, adjust the weight, and the journey continues. I cannot spend my life rebelling or extolling the virtues of my burdens. I cannot become enraptured with my ability to bear yet more weight. Burden, in this sense, is not a term of negativity. It\u2019s a statement of fact. I am tall. I am brown. I have dimples. I have cancer. There is no way to tell what effect each one will have until a tally of all journeys is created, if there is indeed a day of tabulation. I am just one of the multitude on the road and my vision cannot encompass the panorama of all human life.<\/p>\n Again, a language, is far more psychologized. It determines getting, or obtaining an exact coordinate for where you would like to be. It seems to be a question and a commentary of place, destination, and locale. It\u2019s not so much what you want to be. What good is it to be beautiful if you\u2019re in a land where blindness is commo? No, if we really consider our journey it is one of being in a place where we will receive the highest return based on how we present or what we bear, how we\u2019re burdened when we arrive at the destination.<\/p>\n Even in Christianity, God\u2019s miracles do not so much require us to be something but to be somewhere, ready, by way of experience or innate gifts, to use our burden to His glory. Elevation. Efficiency (that is, not requiring Him to send multiple travelers set to the same task). The person who follows His direction, seems to never be a particularly exemplary person. But they are people who do not run away from a destination which requires a duty (in example, Moses meeting Pharoah, Esther and her king, and the three shepherd boys who trusted God and boldly faced the fire instead of clawing at the door begging men for release).<\/p>\n And I\u2019ve learned that my burdens do not deserve more attention than my fellow travelers. How many people do we touch along the way? We\u2019ve made this particular burden, cancer, more important than it really is. We\u2019ve turned the word cancer into a term which causes tears, horror, and sadly some decide to end the journey, commit suicide rather than face the possibility of miracles which do not materialize or loss of control as the disease progresses. It is assumed that there will be no more life worth living when the sound, \u201ccancer\u201d is whispered into the wind. I\u2019m wondering if the reality comes because it\u2019s going to come or do we get the reality we believe will come? Suffice it to say that a language has been created which only sees with superficial eyes. The things we think we want are always gifts. The things which an actually turn out to be gifts but at first resound as a sentence of death are burdens (and burdens in our tongue, are never sources of good<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another Burden A traveler almost always goes forth, along the way that he is forced to travel or chooses to travel, with burdens. We are accustomed to thinking of that word, \u2018burden\u2019, with pejorative connotations. To give someone a burden is to somehow give something which is unwanted, pleasant, heavy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1845,"parent":1725,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-629","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1977,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/629\/revisions\/1977"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}