Firefly

As I waited to dial my doctor, chemo, cancer, hospital, sick raced through my mind, each word symbolic of a change forever.

The week since the invasive test and the wait to get the result was a real study of how my imagination, the part that was responsible for so much good, became my worst enemy. Whenever I thought about how this potential cancer could affect my son, who was already facing the stress of college applications complicated by this Covid nightmare, my anxiety was an electric field that would wrap around my body. Thankfully I had been relatively healthy, but I have borne witness as friends saw their lives altered inexorably by a cancer diagnosis. As I exchanged pleasantries with my doctor’s receptionist, I thought about how ironic this potential diagnosis would be since my family’s life situation had improved dramatically with my husband’s new job. This new opportunity felt as if we’d won the lottery, which was not rational given how hard my husband had worked these past 30 years and was certainly qualified and deserving of the position. The scope of this change is the stuff most of us dream about, but so few of us see realized. Listening to the music playing on the other end ofthe phone line, instead of trying to stay positive and be yogic about whatever he was going to say, all I could think was “of course you’re going to be sick now that your dreams were coming true”.

November is the month when the word gratitude is used ubiquitously and, in my opinion, annoyingly since the overuse of it seems to dilute its impact. There is no denying this November is unlike any other as the world fights a losing battle against this pandemic and our country hangs in the balance, a balance that feels as if everything is on the line. I imagine most of us are working hard to muster up any grain of gratitude whether we are still healthy or have a job.

So, as I waited for my test results and my brain ran a loop telling me being sick would make sense because of the way good fortune had shined its light on my family, I was reminded of the story Brene Brown told on her recent Netflix show about going to meet Oprah for the first time. The impact of such a meeting wasn’t lost on any of us since who hasn’t dreamed about sitting across from Oprah answering her questions in an intelligent and thoughtful way? In spite of her excitement, her mind raced with images of catastrophic accidents resulting in her death and never arriving in Chicago to realize this dream of meeting Oprah. Her imagined death in the face of something so incredible is not an emotional experience unique to her. Most people when faced with something great may face a moment of hoping or praying to keep disaster from striking. It is me knocking on wood reflexively whenever I say something that is true like, I have never had an accident. It is the belief this truth may be interpreted by the higher spirit as arrogance and therefore subject to his wrath to bring back my humility. After telling this story, Brene Brown discussed how a study revealed the people who don’t immediately await doom in the face of good news shared one trait universally: they were grateful. One assumes they are grateful for everything in their lives, but more importantly they experienced gratitude for the good news, the gratitude a buffer against the expectation of imminent disaster.

My doctor, in his usual reassuring and kind voice, shared the news my test results were benign. The emotional build-up of waiting to hear him say the words cancer, sick, chemo, oncology, made me take a moment to process that the dire future I had pictured so vividly was not to be. I had to have him repeat the news a second time before I believed what he was telling me. It took me an entire day to process the good news, the relief palpable each time I said to myself I am cancer free. Yet this relief was tainted by a nagging feeling of guilt that our lives had taken such a fortuitous turn while the world was experiencing so much loss and pain. As relief and guilt pulled at me, I realized what Brene Brown’s story revealed about how those people were able to accept good fortune without fear and, in my case, guilt. What they must have believed was their worthiness in being the recipient of good things happening to them. It wasn’t that I was not someone who wasn’t immensely grateful for the many, countless good things in my life. What was revealed sadly was my ability to be grateful for the small things, but not for the big things. Any immense event was what threw my worthiness into question. It was always in the big moments like having my son, having my book published, moving to New York, and now the recent event that brought out the fear, marring the true enjoyment and gratitude of being the recipient of such good things.

When I look back, each success was a result of luck, timing, and hard work. The hard work I understand. Timing is a step away from hard work since I can convince myself it is the hard work creating the timing or the hard work allowing me to take advantage of an opportunity. However it is luck that is the intangible, which is why bracing against a lightning bolt is the reflexive expectation. Luck is what we can’t control, what we haveto believe is from a source that is beyond any amount of hard work or timing. In a way it goes beyond self-worth, but instead to the idea of one’s faith. As I’ve learned and continue to learn, faith is the firefly that I see all around me, yet I am constantly trying to seek and to catch, even if fleetingly. I’m going to assume the people Brene Brown described as grateful may have been whose faith was a meaningful part of their lives. As Brene Brown tells it, when faced with an enormous moment, she now says out loud, “I’m grateful, I’m grateful” to push back against the fear. In my case I will say out loud, “I’m faithful and grateful” to push against my fears.