Last night the boy surprised me with a night at the Royal Albert Hall to see Classical Spectacular, a classical music concerto on steroids. Lasers, smoke, fireworks and 3000 fellow senior citizens clapping and singing to British military tunes.
It was the strangest, most enjoyable display of cultured art I’ve ever experienced.
I want to learn to play the violin!
I’ve said before that during times of great pain or great joy, I struggle to find words to write. Extreme emotions just can’t be captured in words. After weeks of roller coaster ups and downs, I’ve finally found a voice again.
In mid October, during a bowling party with work colleagues, my Mom suffered a series of very small strokes. She was rushed to hospital and within days, we found out that she had a tumor in the left atrium of her heart. An atrial myxoma is a congenital tumor that usually goes undetected for decades until a major stroke occurs. We were lucky that her stroke symptoms were minor. For someone so fit, so young, so full of life, the news of a heart tumor came on us like a bomb. We were shocked, devastated, scared, helpless. The world felt like it had changed.
There are moments in time that are etched in memory forever. The kind of moments that people talk about for years. Where were you when the Twin Towers fell? When Barrack Obama was sworn into office? When Canada won hockey gold? This was one of those moments.
Friday, October 8th, 2010. It felt like the world was imploding, the axis of my entire universe was on the brink of total collapse. Like a train wreck about to happen, it’s the kind of fear that you don’t dare stare in the face. It’s there, it’s all encompassing and it has the power to destroy you. Most of the last month was spent trying not to look at the train wreck, trying to hold on to any semblance of sanity and normalcy that I could.
Within days of her diagnosis, Mom was scheduled to undergo open heart surgery. Open breastbone. Heart-lung machine. Risks. Recovery. Prayers. Oh. My. Gosh. Is. This. Really. Happening. I couldn’t believe it. My mom, the energizer bunny, superwoman, friend and sunshine of our lives, suddenly left helpless and vulnerable because of a heart too big. The most loving woman I know with a dangerous condition of a heart too big. It was humorous, heartbreaking, ironic. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I did both. I did whatever it took to survive those weeks of total uncertainty. Mostly, I prayed and project-managed a house in survival mode.
Though I had dealt with tragedies before, none ever came so close to home. You just never think anything bad could ever happen to you or your loved ones. And when it does, the perspective that everyone talks about, the kind that makes you see life in a completely different way, slaps you in the face like cold water. Wake up call.
Each day is precious. Each moment a gift. The things that seem to matter so much like work, errands, and being right, all of a sudden don’t anymore. Nothing seems to matter in that moment of clarity. Nothing. Nothing, except Love. Pure, simple, all encompassing love.
The love found in the overwhelming fear of possibly losing someone. The love in a strained smile given to mask the pain. The love in patience and understanding when nothing seems to go right. The love in phone calls made to people across the globe, a call for prayer and hope and support. The love in tears.
If love were water, we were drowning in it.
Love gives us wings, but it also has the power to destroy us. So you’re forced to choose between the two. And the only choice is to fly. You rise above the fear and you choose faith. You rise above all the petty things and choose to invest in the things that matter. You believe, you declare, you let go and you let God. You choose to fly with powers beyond your understanding. You choose the healing powers of love. You surrender to it.
It’s been a few weeks since Mom was discharged from hospital. I’m thankful to say that she’s home and recovering well. I still struggle to come to terms with the ups and downs of the last month. Sometimes I feel numb to the whole experience. So much learned, so much to be grateful for. Hopefully in the next few weeks, the words will come easier and I’ll be able to tell a fuller story of the amazing journey that we’ve gone through. Until then, I’m thankful that we’re in a place now where I can write to tell the tale. Where I can write of my gratitude to God and the universe for giving Mom her second life here in earth.
Hug your Mom today. Hug everyone you love. Today is all we have.
A few months ago, on a fresh London evening, a girl friend and I were sitting at a pub catching up about the year away. We talked travel and work and friendship. Under the buzz of after-office revelry, we opened up about pain and history and the men in our lives. She asked me about the Boy and how things were going. And I said in an instant, “I don’t know how it’s possible but everyday it gets better and better. Usually, things start out really great and fizzle away over time, but with this one, it’s been the opposite”. She smiled and said, “I love the slow burn”.
The slow burn.
Like unwrapping a present one fold at a time, the slow burn is an exercise in patience. It’s believing when there is no proof. It’s anticipating when there is no map. It’s moving forward in the complete pitch black trusting that whatever happens, things will turn out as they should. It’s the opposite of control. It’s about not needing to know the future, it’s about being ok with uncertainty, it’s about embracing the moment.
The last year away has been a slow burn for me. So much of the path I took while traveling, exploring and learning was uncharted. On certain occasions, I didn’t even know where I’d sleep that night. And on a grander scale, I had no idea what I was going to do after the journey was over, whenever “over” came. It was an exercise in becoming completely comfortable with myself and all the non-answers that plagued me. Did I make the right decision? Am I in the right place? Where will I be a year from now?
There were moments during my travels when these questions would drive me crazy. I’d been so used to having answers, to having it all planned out. Sitting in the nucleus of a self-made bubble of ambiguity was sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating and almost always scary.
It has taken me a while to realize this but the slow burn is probably one of life’s best gifts. In friendship, in work, in love and in dreams, the most important element is time. Time reveals all the details that matter. Time gives you the perspective and level-headedness to see past the fear, the heady excitement and the unease of change. It helps you dig through the superficial and gives you the clarity to really see the bare bones truth of what you need to know. It really is like opening the most amazing present there is, one small fold, one piece of scotch-tape at a time.
Patience is key. Welcome the slow burn. If you rush through, you may miss out on the stuff that matters.
