Lifelines
People sometimes comment on how well I seem to be handling my death. I thank them politely, but humbly disagree, as I very much doubt I’m handling things well at all. I received enough of these kinds of comments that I began to wonder, how am I handling this?
People don’t see the full picture. They aren’t privy to my moments of private anguish. The unexpected bouts of depression. The debilitating paralysis from my ever-growing task list for dismantling my life. When I’m awake in the early hours, fretting about no longer being there for my partner, my children, or my family. The melancholy mid pleasant experience as I realise I might well be experiencing whatever it is for the last time. These are the times I feel I’m not handling things. Not handling things at all.
Unsurprisingly, I don’t want to die. I don’t feel prepared or at ease with dying. At least, not yet. I’m onboard with dying generally speaking, it’s just that it arrived a fair bit earlier than expected. There are things I wanted to do. I had plans. I wanted to keep working. Make a contribution. Write. Make music. Do photography. Build a house. I wanted to be there as my children grew into adulthood. Most of all, I wanted to be with my partner, enjoy our lives and grow old together. Suddenly, it’s all too late.
And yet, I persevere. I keep wading through this existential murk. I persevere, in part, thanks to experiences that offered new perspectives. After more than a year of medical twists and turns while reluctantly preparing for the end, there are three perspectives in particular, three lifelines, that helped keep me going.
There’s always worse
Just prior to my current path in life, my children and I were alienated from each other for roughly two whole years. This was, by far, the worst experience of my life. Alienation splits parenthood open and preys on its very essence, denying you access to be with and nurture your children, cutting them off from your protection and care. It affected me, my partner, and my entire family more deeply than I ever could have imagined.
It began gradually at first, but soon became absolute, leaving me with no contact, no idea about their wellbeing, and no knowledge of their whereabouts. Every attempt to communicate with them was ignored or rebuffed with regurgitated disinformation. They were purposefully filled with confusion and fear. Lied to, manipulated, weaponised and used. Emotionally blackmailed into demolishing their relationship with their own father. Robbed of all the support and love I had for them. It was heartbreaking. Beyond devastating.
And throughout this, I was powerless to help. Nothing I tried worked. They were trapped behind an unassailable wall of disinformation and control. All I could do was watch and wait and hope that something changed.
With this, it wasn’t long before I suffered a complete breakdown. Deep in depression, I seriously considered suicide, most days, for an entire year. Eventually, with support from a good psychologist, I managed to clamber back to the surface and start rebuilding my life. A few weeks later when I was diagnosed with cancer, I remember thinking, Well, at least it can’t be worse than what happened with my kids.
If there’s a silver lining to this tragedy, it was being dragged through, surviving and growing from some of the worst that life can throw at you. Later, while being treated for cancer, I encountered people in far worse situations than my own. There are always worse situations. Always someone worse off than you. Rather than some perverse at least I’m doing better than them sort of consolation, I see this as grounding. Levelling. That we’re all in the same boat. That anything can happen to any of us, any time. Unimaginable things.
There’s always refuge
Buddhism felt otherworldly, if not impenetrable when I first started dabbling in meditation in my early thirties. I purchased and half-read a bunch of books by the Dalai Lama and various other esteemed practitioners. I listened to talks and guided meditations. I tried my best to adopt the Five Precepts – the basic code of ethics for lay Buddhists – all entirely straightforward and sensible, if somewhat challenging when it came to Precept number five, prohibiting intoxication through alcohol or other means. I considered going on retreats, but never went. I looked at joining local groups, but never took the plunge. Somewhat bewildered, my meditation practice stumbled along in fits and starts, largely tied to rough patches in my life that motivated me to seek refuge.
Two decades later, as I struggled through alienation from my children, I revisited meditation and Buddhist philosophy in earnest, this time exposing myself to different, far less mystical perspectives. It seemed counterintuitive at first, but the more secular my understanding and practice grew, the more sense it made, and the greater the effects it had on my life.
I began to understand and see for myself that meditation isn’t something that you do. It’s ceasing to do. Ceasing to drift around in life on auto-pilot, unconsciously reacting to every little thing that pops up. It’s noticing and recognising thoughts and emotions for what they are: thoughts and emotions. Not truth. Not reality. Just passing ephemera, like clouds in the sky.
The vast majority, myself largely included, live our lives on auto-pilot, automatically reacting to whatever arises from moment to moment. Our minds immediately accept and deposit whatever thoughts and emotions pop up as layers of fact. As us. What we believe. Who we think we are. In reality, it’s just sediment. And it builds up. It solidifies. Meditation slowly loosens this sediment, breaks it up, and helps prevent new layers from being put down. It trains you to become more aware of things as they arise, giving you time and space to observe what’s happening and choose your response.
This provides refuge. Freedom. And it’s always available, no matter what. As confronting as a terminal diagnosis is, as brutal as chemotherapy is, I was often able to pause, watch my fear or pain or grief arising, cancel my auto-response and lessen my suffering, safe in the knowledge that I could observe and be with whatever was there, and then act on it accordingly, or let it dissipate and drift away.
We’re all going to die
We’re all going to die might just be the most insipid of all cliches about life. Ordinarily, this saying would roll over me without trace, much as I imagine it does for most people. But through chance and misfortune, I received a personalised lesson in this very truth.
Late one Monday afternoon, I decided a medical matter couldn’t be ignored any longer and drove myself to the local hospital. After hours of poking and prodding, scans and tests, a nurse drew my cubicle curtains closed and promised they’d leave me alone to sleep.
I woke at 4 AM the next morning to a doctor standing over me. He apologised for waking me so early, but said it was best we talked. What they’d found was serious. Cancer.
Later that morning another doctor arrived to discuss my results, restating much of what the 4 AM doctor said. My liver was riddled with tumours. While they were yet to confirm the source, the liver was a major problem. I would likely die from liver failure. I was to be admitted for further tests. I’d never stayed in hospital before.
Upstairs in a new ward, my roommate was an elderly gentleman by the name of Neville. He was 90, softly spoken, intelligent and articulate. We chatted about Scotland, the state of the journalism, golf, the pace of technology, and life in the fifties. I made him cups of tea.
Dinner arrived. Beef, gravy, mash, pumpkin, apple juice, jelly, ice cream. Not too bad. I realised Neville was looking very yellow. He wasn’t hungry.
Returning to our room the next morning from the kitchenette, Neville and a doctor were discussing something behind his curtain. The doctor explained that he was very unwell. His liver was shutting down. They asked what his wishes were should he need to be resuscitated. That this was a very real possibility in the very near future.
A wave of shock hit me. What was this? Some kind of cruel joke? They tell me my liver’s shot, then pair me up with someone on the verge of death from the very same?
An elderly woman appeared in our doorway, looking for someone. Neville had spoken about his wife. How they’d been together for 64 years. I directed her around the curtain dividing our room, excused myself with some nonsense about needing to make a phone call, and headed for the door.
“Hello darling.” I heard Neville say. “I’ve got some bad news. They tell me I’m a bit of a cot-case.”
Later that day, more of Neville’s family arrived and started preparing him to move, presumably to palliative care. They shuffled about and wore expressions of people in shock. When he left, he gave a warm goodbye, instructed me to remember that I’m young and strong, and wished me luck. With Neville and his family gone, I had a shower, a shampoo and a cry, and cancelled my mental note to make him tea in the morning.
Alone, gazing out the window across a sea of gumtrees towards the mountains, my thoughts turned to dying. What if I survive somehow? If I survive, it’d only be a matter of time before I’d be right back here, or similar, facing death, perhaps at 90, perhaps just like Neville. Forty years would skip by in a heartbeat. And it’s entirely possible that the end would begin just as subtly as it did this time, just as it did for Neville, with something along the lines of a trip to emergency one Monday afternoon.
Thoughts? Email cam@camgrant.com.