No Mystery Here

"I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable...but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing." - Agatha Christie

Boy, Dame Agatha knew more than how to poison your neighbor, kill the cook and inspire one's little grey cells (said in my best Hercule Poirot voice.)

Being alive is a grand thing.

I'll admit it freely. I truly dislike whiners. You know the type. People who go on and on about their problems. 

Once I knew a woman who had survived breast cancer back when suffers readily succumbed to it. As my beloved mother had been one of those, it was a particular touchy subject with me. Yet, despite a full recovery never did Mary express joy, much less gratitude, of her extended life  Within minutes of meeting a new person she would state her former cancer status.

Folded newspaper clippings of breast cancer statistics regularly pulled from her wallet served to embarrassed, bore or both those readers she subjected them too.

Doom and gloom was a matching set, which followed her everywhere.

I suggested to her daughter getting her mother to speak to a therapist would be beneficial. It met with a negative response.

Lovingkindness was not at the root of my response when Mary opened her wallet for the fourth time. 

"No." I announced emphatically. "I've had enough."

Her widened eyes and naively mouthed "what?" only served to further annoy me.

"I am sorry you had cancer." I continued. "But, 'had' is the operative word. You survived it. You have a good job and the opportunity to see your grandchildren grow. Many like my mother, were not so fortunate." 

Snapping her wallet shut, her face resembled a Mount Rushmore granite bust.

"You are alive. Can you not celebrate that?"

She refused to speak to me the rest of the day and within months I lost the friendship with her daughter. From others I learned Mary's modus operandi never improved.

Now as a cancer sufferer myself, I truly recognize how dangerous such a negative attitude is.

Yes, cancer is a bitch! 

It hurts sometimes to the point of screaming. It makes you a mess from hair loss, scars and disgusting bodily functions that can change in minutes. Sleep is lost or needed in seemingly excessive amounts. Costs can eat up lifelong savings as well as diminish family and other relationships once relied upon.

However, given the alternative of dying...I'll take cancer.

Each day I awake, sometimes in great pain, but listen to the birdsong. It means I've survived. What that day holds is often a mystery. 

Not to be lived as a conundrum of bleakness, but rather in simple joy and deep gratefulness.

I am alive.