The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you get one more yard
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
- Tom Petty, The Waiting
A good friend asked me the other day, "Are you scared?"
Of course, he was alluding to “IT”…the parasitic monster lurking within me: “The Big C,” the off-ramp of this mortal coil, the demise that silences my voice before claiming the rest of me. Am I scared…?
As I began writing this oasis, my phone lit up with a notice to a group of us who’ve kept in touch since graduating high school together…that another member of our class was now gone. He was, by all accounts – then, as now – a good person. He had “passed away unexpectedly, on Saturday,” the text message announced. Uncanny, if apropos timing, wouldn’t you say?
My answer to my friend was the refrain to a Tom Petty song from 1981. And while Tom wasn’t speaking intentionally of mortality, it is – it occurred to me – the most vexing part of receiving a cancer diagnosis…this waiting period. Being the host of a monster is a cruel game of “mindfuck,” you might say. Am I scared?
In five days (September 26th), I will undergo a second surgical procedure. My surgeon’s intent is single-minded and clear: to rid my vocal cords of the spider-like web of cancerous material remaining since the first surgery. Despite its presence, I have been able to intone a much wider range of notes than at any time in the last ten years! That is how muting the presence of a cancerous mass within my right vocal cord – and another on top of the cord – had become. This just might be the “unkindest cut” of all...removing the entirety of the monster’s visible substance from the vocal cord may force it underground for a time; but it could claim my voice before submerging. Am I scared?
The Darkened Road
I think about the work that lays in front of me. The unfinished novel, the unspoken words, the unpolished poem resting dormantly, the relationships I am not even nearly ready to relinquish. Even after this next surgery, what new challenge awaits me regarding the tenuous condition of my voice? Am I scared?
I am blest beyond measure. That is truth. Occasionally, the architect of this universe whispers in my sleep. He implores me forward, with haste and purpose. I feel the prayers I do not deserve…the grace I can never earn. Pushed to move forward, no matter what…I harbor doubts and question my own sanity. Fatigued beyond words, I face the darkened road ahead…and the terror. Praying for the light to return, I now realize the darkened road so many of us face. Sometimes, the very best we can do is stumble forward…day by day, hour by hour, moment to moment, breath to breath. Am I scared?
Seems Mr. Petty was right all along:
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part.
And so, I wait.
Peace. Shalom.