The light shines in the darkness,
And the darkness has not overcome it.
- John 1:5
We are such fragile creatures. Born into these bodies for which we neither asked nor participated in the making, our genetic code determines, by many measures, our comings and our goings throughout this life: everything, from our bone structure and flesh to our predisposition to specific mutations that make us susceptible to disease. And we participated in the making of none of it. At best, we inherit strong physical genes and emotional stability from parents who are, themselves, good at forgetting their own hurts to enable us to live without their trauma…at best. At worst, we could spend our whole lives walking the darkened road, searching for the light…and the chance to exit, leaving the world a better place than we found it.
End of the Beginning
Friday, September 26th began under a bright morning sun in north Texas. The clear voice I had enjoyed for two precious weeks – following the initial removal of two masses – was raspier, as the date of surgery for cancer removal couldn’t come fast enough. A spiderweb of white cells growing exponentially in size and speed were now making their presence felt…just below my tongue and larynx. I was on the darkened road…and imagined it might grow darker still.
Friends and acquaintances – along with people I don’t know and may never meet – prayed…for my recovery, for the surgeon’s hands and mind, for a miracle. It is incredibly humbling to me to consider that such faith-filled souls would be willing to prosecute my case before God. I am neither an atheist, nor an agnostic. But I’ve always found it far easier to pray for others, rather than myself. To understand that fact about me would require knowledge of things you probably don’t want to embrace; trust me, my life’s journey has been…fraught. Yet there were many whose prayers I felt in my soul on that bright morning…a radiant litany of prayer being lifted like a rising wave on an ocean tide. It comforted me to know that if all else failed, my relatively young surgeon would somehow be changed for the better. What I never expected was the change in my own perception.
As the surgical team rolled my bed out of the waiting area, it suddenly felt like I was being catapulted from one uneasy state of soul into another, completely battle-ravaged war room. In those seconds, I rattled off “Hail Marys” and “Our Fathers” at fever pace. The nurses and interns were tucking me into a cocoon of blankets and puffy-pillows to prevent blood clots, and I was – in under 60 seconds – positioned for my young surgeon to move in with all his magic toys. On my own, it would have required several writhing minutes to escape the body-length straight-jacket in which I was now bound.
“Where’s my damn bartender?!” I barked, unceremoniously. Suddenly, from behind and to my left, I heard the snicker of the anesthesiologist who’d already come to talk with me as I awaited the Uber to the OR.
“Okay,” he played along, grinning, “what’s your pleasure?”
“Ask doc,” I quipped, “he knows my taste.” I glanced at my surgeon, and he nodded, grinning broadly.
“This guy’s very particular…he likes only single-malts, eighteen years or older!” (I’d have given a “thumbs-up,” but my arms were pinned.)
After an unnerving pause, the drug-slinger replied, “Comin’ up!”
“Yeah, yeahhh,” I tossed more shade at him. “I’m counting down from one-hundred…and if you can’t put me out by the time I reach ‘zero,’ you’re fired!”
“Hey!” he tossed it back, “I’ll take that challenge! In fact, we’re almost there.”
“Here goes,” I warned, “One-hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight…three, two, one.”
Last thing I remember, as the lights faded, was faint laughter. Never reached “zero.”
The Lifting Fog
This was my twenty-third surgical procedure in this life. Twenty-three. (I know, hard to wrap one’s head around that.) As someone familiar with unusual surgeries and bizarre outcomes (“The Butchers of Prague,” for those of you unfamiliar), I have learned to lower expectations for full cognition coming out of the fog of surgery. The artificial lights of a recovery room penetrated my eyelids. It’s neither a “pleasurable” sensation, nor does it leave one feeling refreshed. This time was no different: a nurse urging me to chew on some crushed ice; an offer to bring Jello, a few questions to gauge my cognition…and my wife telling me how surgery went “sooo well.”
“Says who…?” I whispered.
“Your doctor!”
I nodded, motioned for a whiteboard and felt pen. The nursed handed it to me, and I scrawled feverishly, “Yeah…same guy who told me the first procedure was ‘no big rush’…that doctor?”
“Hey, he said he got it all!”
“Get Doc in here,” I wrote, “…please!” I wasn’t having any of it.
She chuckled, “He just left…don’t you recall him talking with you? You answered him.”
Again, on the whiteboard, I scribbled, “Just…humor me.”
The nurse, observing all this, asked if I wanted to see him.
“Yes,” I whispered, “the answer hasn’t changed.”
Thus, she fetched him. Took a while, but when he entered the recovery room, he was enthusiastic, very positive. He proceeded to confirm two things:
1) This strain of squamous cell carcinoma was aggressive – “It was broad, but not deep,” he explained.
2) “I’ve taken enough tissue to ensure clean margins. I believe we got all of it. That will be confirmed by the biopsy…we should have those results in three to four days.”
Hanging on his every word, I was satisfied that my suspicions had both (1) been valid; and (2) been addressed…for now. The stupor of anesthesia was beginning to wane, and the soreness of my throat confirmed that this was a much bigger deal, involving removal of far more of my vocal cord than I would like. But now was no time to be selfish with toxic flesh, given the tradeoff.
Ten days after the latest surgery – my doctor (finally) confirmed that the cancer has been removed in its entirety. The reason for doc’s follow-up phone call…? He was attending a conference in London. Seems the rest of the world, indeed, has better things to do than wait, in excruciating silence, with me.
Indeed, “God is good…all the time,” I reminded myself.
Healing…and the bending of time
Ever notice, when stricken with illness or accident, how slowly time seems to creep along? It can seem that our suffering expands the time in which to contain it. As the Gordon Lightfoot song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” contemplates:
Does anyone know where the love of God goes,
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
A common branch of theoretical and quantum physics now speculates – with significant authority – that time is not a constant, linear continuum. While most of the discussion I’ve read is far over my head, I learned an essential point. Once learned, it stayed learnt. Goes like this:
Time is neither linear nor cyclical. Rather, while the human brain cannot comprehend a non-linear multi-dimensional aspect of it, time may in fact consist of several more dimensions, affected by black holes, quantum entanglement and a host of other astronomical factors that loom above my intellect. In short, what we do today may affect something done yesterday, last year, last millennia…in a parallel universe, no less. Some trippy shit, for certain…but no less relevant than our own perceptions that time – in relation to our living of it – is flexible, accommodating our suffering.
From His own perspective, the depravity of Christ’s suffering on a cross may have extended beyond our limited comprehension of time. Understanding, as He must, His own Father’s design of the cosmos, Jesus may have been collecting all souls who ever lived, from throughout the heavens. Bringing the weight of that mass onto His own shoulders, three hours nailed to a tree may have, in scientific fact, been closer to three light-years in any direction…past, present, future. This is, essentially, what a significant number of theoretical physicists are beginning to understand…the unquantifiable nature of God.
“So, Carl…” you may be wondering, “where the hell are you going with this…?”
Time – for me – has slowed, momentarily. Each swallow of water, each attempt to merely clear my throat, reminds me of the wound, and the potential for losing my one cherished means of communicating with God. In such solitude, I hear the pleas from my spouse, friends, others who have prayed for me to shut my mouth…and let the healing begin. In fact, I may have been given a glimpse of my eventual undoing. But it is nearly nothing compared with the suffering endured each day by many souls in hospitals, palliative units and hospice care.
Whether I regain full use of this voice…that is now in His hands. Either way, I accept His decision. (After all, what choice have I?) And I am forever grateful, beyond words, for all the prayers offered up on behalf of my doctor…and me. They are palpable and soothing to my soul. You have humbled me with your faith. I will attempt to become worthy of that.
Oasis of Light
Thus, as I leave for nine days of solitude and writing in a “cabin in the woods,” I will be praying a very specific, special novena for all of you: The Surrender Novena. (To my non-Catholic friends, don’t worry – you’re included, too! It’s a “thing” we Catholics embrace from time to time…a selfless act of agape and filial love and faith.).
Normally, my time at the cabin has included good scotch…and a couple cigars (to the dismay of my choir director). Well, not this time. The Montecristos? No more of that. The scotch…? It can wait. This oasis, the finding of it, is no mirage. I hope to be here for the foreseeable future. But my human sight is limited, merely three-dimensional.
A light, indeed, shines in the darkness.
