The Thief

 We think of the devil as a thief. We think of fear as a thief.

Rod Stewart sang that time is a thief.

All true, each in its own way. But I'm not talking about the devil or fear or time, here.

I'm talking about me.

I'm a thief, for in my way of dealing with terminal illness...being a joking, flippant hardass...I've taken something from my wife, the emotion to which she, in a married relationship, is entitled/

What she's been denied is best illustrated in Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture" (he himself died of pancreatic cancer):

As we held each other, Jai whispered something in my ear.

“Please don’t die.”

It sounds like Hollywood dialogue. But that’s what she said. I just hugged her more tightly.

Honestly, it makes me cringe to quote that. Both for the weak-suck attitude it shows, and for my own deficiency.

Something like this could never take place here, because I've taken the line that it's best to laugh into death's face, treat cancer as a jolly joke, and through sardonic humour prove myself indomitable.

So Barb knows not to 'go there', even if she feels it, for I'd just deflect the emotion with a quote, perhaps, from Thor: "I have no plans to die today." (It comes close to the end of this short clip...click here if it doesn't come up on your device.)

You push aside a person's concern, and you're really pushing the person away.

And worse, it sets a kind of example..."If he doesn't care about his own death, how can I care about his...or mine?"

And thus, the transition from hardass to dumbass...in trying to make the situation a bit easier, I've made it much, much worse.

Can this be rectified? Though I'm not a pshrink, I'd have to say, No. What I wanted to become is now what I am, and there's no 'inner child' that can be reached. The kid's been killed. Any attempt at reaching 'him' will only be an act, and as anyone who went to high school with me knows, I'm a crappy actor.

But I can just shut up. I can open my heart and close my mouth and listen, and maybe, through the grace of God, some humanity can retutn to moderate what I am, and point me toward what I should be.

Day by day, I keep on going,

laugh at pain beyond belief

while deep in my heart the knowing

that I have become a thief.

I joke about conditions dire,

jest that I’ve not long to live,

while realizing you require

to give what only you can give,

the comfort offered in the holding,

wiping tears from anguished face,

but you’re fearful of a scolding

for I am of a another race,

a people always playing cool,

which effort only plays the fool.

Music from Bryan Adams, with Summer of '69. (Please click here if the video doesn't come up for you.)

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.

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.