Your Dying Spouse 506 - Play The Man {FMF}

"Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

Hugh Latimer (c. 1470 – 16 October 1555 )

Hugh Latimer was the Bishop of Worcester and Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. He was burned to death with his friend Nicholas Ridley, by order of Queen Mary, on October 15, 1555.

Play the man.

Unbelievably, the pain gets worse...pancreas and lungs and lymph nodes, and oh, my right femur (with the metastasis) now has a break in it, so I have to use a staff to walk...and it attacks in different ways, so there's no getting used to it, no anticipating an enemy who is both resourceful and relentless.

I'm way past chest-thumping "I will prevail!" boastfulness, past the motivational slogans, past the inspiring books and films that gave me path and paradigm.

And even Scripture is fading..."My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?"

Lost and alone on this burning desert of loneliness, feeling sometimes bereft of hope...

I pretend.

I pretend that I'm happy, that there are no tears of anger and fear, that I don't resent what's happening, that it is bearable and that I find purpose in this dark passage.

I pretend that I'm strong.

And a funny thing happens.

Make-believe becomes real.

I'm happy, and I'm neither angry nor resentful nor afraid.

It's bearable, and I do find the fulfillment of my life, my true purpose, here.

And I'm strong.

A child's game, and it's saving my sanity and my soul. It takes a child to be a man.

But then, didn't Jesus say that we could only enter heaven as little children?

Here's a blast from the past, Blues Image with Ride Captain Ride. Enjoy!

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 505 - Respecting Grief {FMF}

Another horribly painful night...my screams woke Barb, as they did every night this week...and today happens to be our sixteenth anniversary. (And that was last week's Five Minute Friday prompt.)

Anniversaries...a time to look back.

And in a season of terminal cancer, a time to grieve what's been lost.

Our relationship, and marriage, will never be what it was. There's no shared adventure, no shared fun. What we share is pain, and the need to stabilize me...and walk the dogs who've become terrified at what's happening.

There were so many plans, place to go, things to do. Even small things, like an occasional dinner at Outback or Olive Garden.

But those are impossible now. Driving, for any distance, puts me into intolerable pain, and that's not the right way to drink a toast to love.

So, yes, grief. For hat might have been, for what's never going to be.

Except...I don't.

To me, what's happening is just 'one of those things'.

Shit happens, bring a shovel.

I really don't look back, and I don't look further forward than the next ten minutes or so. I've become ZenMan, living entirely in the present.

And that is so unfair to Barbara.

My world is proscribed; pancreatic cancer will kill me, eventually. I can fight for a long time, but the outcome isn't really in doubt. My life has an endpoint, and it's definite.

Not so, for my wife. She will live for decades yet (I hope!); my living in the now would be an unimaginable luxury for her, because she has to fit her life into a paradigm that includes past and future.

She's carrying the baggage, and I am forcing her to do so.

I'm not the only one hurting.

And I have to set her grief above my momentary calm.

For no particular reason, here's music from The Grass Roots, with Temptation Eyes.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 504 - You And What Army?

This will be short, as I spent most of last night shrieking in pain, and fighting off Jesus, who had dropped by to escort me Home.

"Yeah, JC, you and what army?"

Barb lost a few hours of sleep, trying to calm a madman whom pain pushed beyond the edge of reason.

Still, it was better than last time; the thing happened just before she got home from work, and Barb found me with a steel bar in hand, ready to fight off the Lord and all His Angels.

Maybe God thinks that I'm done here; I don't.

I have a wife to hold up in prayer, and to support as she builds the life that she will have without me. I have to teach her the way of the dogs, so that they don't overwhelm her.

I have friends to encourage, and to love.

I have dogs to cuddle when they're feeling sick, and when they get old, and they're scared of the thunderstorms they could once scare away with their furious barking.

This is my post; this is my meaning.

I'm not saving the last bullet for myself, because I still have a knife, and when its blade is broken, I will pick up the nearest rock.

And I still have fists, and nails, and teeth.

Heaven can wait.

I've been asked by my anguised wife, WHY? Why do this to yourself?

Simple. I'm doing it for you, so that you will remember down the years that while I may have lost, I never gave up.

I'm in this fight to whatever bloody end, and then...don't count me out.

For I will rise again.

Music from Paul McCartney and Wings, with the original video of Band On The Run. It's fun!

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 503 - I Am A Dinosaur

During the last night I was tempted to ask why.

The pain in my abdomen and chest and leg were so bad that I had to put a towel in my mouth to keep from crying out (Barb needs her sleep for her challenging job), and still I was thrashing so bad the dogs were quite concerned.

And then there was this morning, when I didn't make it to the dunny, and the dogs fled to the four winds. I know you didn't need to read that, and I didn't need to live it, but that is My Cancer Life.

So the question, unbidden - Why me?

Why?

But it's the wrong question; whether it's random causality introduced by the fall of man, or a generational curse, or something horrible I did clawing out a karmic vengeance...it doesn't matter.

Why is the wrong question.

How? is the right one.

How do I continue to function like a gentleman, with honour and courtesy, when pain and humiliation and loss of future are tearing down the very walls of character?

It starts with expression.

Smile, even though it hurts.

Then, posture.

Stand up straight, even though it REALLY hurts.

And finally, tone of voice.

Think before speaking, and never let an unkind word, nor an ill-modulated tone, pass your lips, for the lips are the guardians of your reputation.

Master those three and the real enemy in cancer is beaten, for you will arrive at the Pearly Gates a gentleman.

And yes, I realize that aspiring to be a gentleman makes me a dinosaur in this age of gender-blending and identity politics. I wear that label with no little pride, so over to John Williams, and the main title from Jurassic Park. So there!

But first, a riddle...what do you call a T. Rex with a great singing voice?

Dinah Shore. Geddit?

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 502 - Father, Into Your Hands I Commend My Spirit

"Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and when summoned away, to leave without regret."

Robert E. Lee

And so it goes...getting harder with each day.

Pancreatic cancer and lymphoma have pushed me to the edge of my strength. Oh, I'm still hanging on, make no mistake. Still keeping my spirits up, so that if the miracle of healing does come, I'll be ready (and not saying, "Well, uh...I'm healed...NOW what do I do?").

I hope for that, but it isn't the only positive outcome. I may die in dreadful pain, and go through the scariest things I can never imagine in the long nights of agony before that, and it's what I do now, in spite of the pain and fear, that can make a difference.

So if you'll bear with me, I'll try to follow in some pretty deep footsteps, with my hand raised, like a child, to take the Hand of the One who will help me from each step to the next.

Luke 23:34: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

God, I forgive, without reservation, those who have wronged me...and I ask you to forgive me, for the wrongs I've done. So many times, looking back, I know what You wanted me to do...and I didn't do it. I'm so sorry.

Luke 23:43: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

God, with the strength I have left, let me shine your light, to reach those who may not have heard You, or, like me, may not have listened. Here am I; send me.

John 19:26–27: Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother

God, I won't be able to be with Barbara and the dogs for as long as I'd wanted to; I accept that, and ask that you bring someone into their lives to protect and love and nurture them.

Matthew 27:46 & Mark 15:34 My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

God, sometimes I feel so alone, and in the depths of pain, so far from You. Please give me the strength to hold onto faith when it feels like I have nothing left to cling to, and please burn in my heart the knowing the fact that You were all I ever really had.

John 19:28: I thirst.

God, I'm so thirsty, from the pancreatic cancer, and from the calcium rising in my blood from the bone metastases. It's a terrible thirt, a sorrowful, hopeless thirst. Please let me see that You are the only quenching of this awful lack!

John 19:30: It is finished.

God, my race may be almost done, but whatever distance I have yet to run, let me finish strong, for Your sake.

Luke 23:46: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

God, dear Father, you hold me in your hands, and it's there that by heart and soul find rest...to one day rise again in the presence of Your Glory and Love.

AMEN.

So now let's bring in the Moody Blues, with I Know You're Out There Somewhere...because He is.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.