Unexpected strength

Last week found me sobbing into my husband’s shoulder, weak, achy, with tender feet and tender soul, asking why, why must there be suffering in the world – and can we please, please stop the chemo? (He agreed.)  It all was so heavy on my shoulders, and the overwhelming fatigue made it all almost too much to bear.

Yesterday, I asked God my questions, and I begged to understand.  I accept the suffering if need be, I said, but I do not yet understand why it is, or what its purpose may be.  I struggle, and I am not grateful for the cancer.  I am not serene, and I am not accepting of the failings of my own body, as my yoga teacher urged after my first diagnosis.  I still fight, and I still rail against the illness and the failures on the structural level of my cells.

This morning, after exhausting myself getting the kids ready for school, I had a short rest and then found the strength to go to a meeting on work-life balance, to grab a new aquarium filter at the fish store, and to venture out to the Lego Store at Tyson’s Corner (really!) in search of a gift for the cousins.  All that today, and tonight I bopped into RCIA (Bible Study for Catholics-to-be) right on time, much to Sister’s surprise.  (I had warned her last week that I was feeling awful, and that I would most likely not be there this week.  She had reassured me that if I weren’t there, she would come by and catch me up and bring me Eucharist Tuesday morning.)  Well, missing class never even crossed my mind.  I drove myself there for the first time in weeks, and had no problems at all.

And to my surprise?  I was asked to play a part in next week’s Rite of Acceptance/Welcome for my classmates next week.  I’ll be presenting the potential new members to the priest, and reading the prayers at the end of the rite.

And as I drove Sister home, she shared with me that she does not fully understand suffering either.  She doesn’t know why we here on Earth have to hurt, and she doesn’t know what its purpose is or how it brings us closer to God.  All she knows, she said, is to offer it up to God, saying, “Lord, please take this suffering, and use it for your people.” 

And so, tonight, I pray, “Lord, please take this suffering, and use it for your people,” and I thank God that he gave me the strength to be there today, and to come back and tell you exactly what happened.  One day, when my children ask, “Why didn’t my mother fight the cancer harder?”  I ask that you tell them, “She did, honey, she did,” and also, “Your mama also trusted in God.  She prayed for healing, and for her aches and pains to have a purpose.”

Last time, this time

Last time, my love for my newborn baby and his big brother — and the Daddy who danced in the rain with us — pulled me through.

This time, they pull me — but my work pushes me.

And this time, I make time for that work, for I understand that it drives me forward into the future.  A future that I can create.  A future that maybe, just maybe, can be about more than surviving to erase the maybe-days of a sad childhood that otherwise awaits my children* — a future that is also about me.  My work.  My loves.  My legacy. 

A future that is still open to me creating a new legacy, unlimited, rather than a month here and there alloted to put the polish on the small little legacy that I once thought would sit quietly in the corner of my lifetime, had it ended with my diagnosis in the too-bright summer of 2007.  Two little boys.  A five-year career with NASA.  An overgrown garden.  And a love that was at once the foundation and the fruit of all of these.

To this, I will add a return to faith.  A book, or two.  A job well done.  A little extra exposure to a shared love of science among children of the internet.  A tight web of friendships among people who had no right to ever expect to meet.  And with faith and science and love comes hope.

hope that i am not done writing my legacy.

…

* It is a cold calculus, but true nonetheless:  Every day that I can bear the chemo and push forward with confidence is a day that my children can live and grow in the sunshine of a “normal” childhood, and a day that I know that they are not saddled with the sadness of living without their mother.  I seek normalcy for them above all else, and I do not hesitate to add moments of joy and abandon and paddling in the creek without our boots on.  For of such everyday magic a childhood is made, and I am determined that my little loves will have good memories of growing up, of nature, and of being with their mama as she loved the world, and, for a time, it loved her back.  Today I embrace nature, and faith, and joy, and hope without reservation, in the hope that it will be reflected in their own lives one day.  If I cannot be there for them as they grow all the way up, I can at least give them a good foundation to build on.  I can give them today.  

Social media?

A woman in Portland, Oregon, has shut herself off from society in an attempt to show whether online interaction is a satisfactory subsitute for in-person interaction.  Newspaper to New Media characterizes it as a sort of experiment, stating that she aims “to learn how technology walls people off even while connecting them.”  Her site itself explains it as not an experiment, but as a kind of performance art, and her living quarters, showcased on a city street, are a companion piece. 

If it’s art, I’m not the judge (the only significant art I own consists of a handpainted pig on the wall and my children’s crayon drawings covering my office door like wallpaper).

But as experiment, I have a few things to say about this.  It offends me not as a scientist (as a scientist, I love seeing nonscientists try changing the variables to see what happens – the basis of some of the greatest experiments), but it offends me as a cancer patient.  Unless handled carefully, work like this belittles the vast experience that people who live this every day have.  That people who suffer from depression, agoraphobia, isolation, disesase, or compromised immune systems live with every day. 

There are many people for whom social media is not just a fun distraction on the commute home or between meetings, but for whom social media is a lifeline. . . their only interaction with the outside world, and one that is vital to keeping their own sanity.

I ranted in a blog comment:

How privileged, do be able to do this as an experiment.  Why not just ask those of us who have to live this, or a form of this everyday?  I’ll give you a hint: many cancer patients in treatment, with compromised immune systems, are largely confined indoors when treatment season (4-6 months) conflicts with flu season. Many of us have found solace, and friendship, and a way to keep up with our lives through social media.  I know I have.

I have, and I’ve written about the way that blogging is my window to the world, both as a mother of very young children needing frequent naps (remember those? as many as five a day for the littlest ones?) and then as a woman in chemotherapy, with an immune system not strong enough to fight off flu season, as in 2007.  My immune system is strong as I fight cancer this time (I have the white blood cell counts to prove it!), but it does take me longer to shake off infections; I’ve been down for a week with the latest preschool virus.

Which makes the count nearly 3 weeks that one or the other of us has had a fever and such, precluding playdates and coffees, and Mommy’s too tired for any activity after noon, so it’s been pretty quiet around here.

Very quiet.

Is online interaction a satisfactory subsitute for in-person interaction?  No.  Hell, no.  But some days, it’s the best you’re gonna get, and for that, I am grateful.

Know someone who is isolated from the world because of a new baby, an ailing family member, or the simple ravages of old age?  You CAN help make it better for them, not by “like”ing something on Facebook or RT’ing it on twitter – but with a simple phone call.  Go ahead.  Use those minutes on your cell phone this month.  Call Grandma or that nice old lady from the church who smells like peppermints.  Ask that shy mom with two kids under 3 to coffee at the park — or ask if you can bring her a treat from Starbucks.  Spend your facebook time today on the phone instead, or dropping by a friend’s house (after calling!), talking and connecting with someone who may not have any other contact with the outside world.  Do your own experiment, and find out whether that makes you feel better than another round of Words With Friends or bringing someone an item for their Facebook Farm.  And come back and let me know.  Maybe I’m wrong in the post above.  Maybe this is a good social media experiment in the reverse — and maybe, just maybe, your particpation could make someone happy.

…

Happy Thanksgiving, my American friends, and Happy Day-That-We’re-Alive to all of the rest of you around the world.  This year, as I have every year since 2006, I give thanks for not the institution of social media, but the friends that it has brought me and allowed me to keep through the isolation of early motherhood and severe illness.  You are so important in my life, and in the lives of so very many others. 

Space Station Challenge: Grades 5-8

I’m still recovering from a nasty virus.  Day 7 of fever and such – not something you want to hear about, trust me!  Instead, feast your eyes on this – and please pass it along to your school or homeschool group for kids in 5-8 grades!

NASA’S ‘KIDS IN MICRO-G’ PROGRAM SEEKS SCIENCE SUBMISSIONS FOR 2011 (from the NASA Press Release)

HOUSTON — NASA’s “Kids in Micro-g” challenge is accepting proposals from students in fifth through eighth grades to design a classroom experiment that also can be performed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Proposals are due by Dec. 8.

The experiments should examine the effect of weightlessness on various subjects: liquids, solids, the law of physics and humans. The experiments are expected to have observably different results in microgravity than in the classroom. The apparatus for the experiments must be constructed using materials from a special tool kit aboard the station. The kit contains items commonly found in classrooms for  science experiments. The experiments must take 30 minutes or less to set up, run and take down.

“This is a wonderful program that gives students the opportunity to have their experiments carried out in space by astronauts,” said Mark Severance, ISS national laboratory education projects manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “The students will compare the results of experiments conducted in the classroom with those conducted in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station.”

A panel of microgravity scientists, classroom teachers, NASA education and station operations personnel will select the winner and five runners-up. Their experiments will be performed on the orbiting laboratory next spring. During this past summer, astronauts performed nine student experiments aboard the space station. NASA selected those experiments from 132 submissions.

To learn more about how to submit proposals for the 2011 challenge, contact the ISS Payloads Office at jsc-iss-payloads-helpline@mail.nasa.gov or call 281-244-6187.  More information about the challenge and other NASA education programs also is available at:  http://www.nasa.gov/education. For more information about the space station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

Sounds like fun!