The other day, a friend I have not met for some time and I were talking, and we recounted some of the things that have happened over the past few years. It has been a decade since we first met, and how much has happened in both our lives, and how we have been there to support one another through difficult and memorable times.
She was there when I got the phone call from my mother, who sounded so distraught and asked me to go home. Dad was in intensive care, and I rushed home. I remember just before I left and said goodbye to her, we stood by the tramtracks in The Hague. She shed tears in a show of compassion, and we hugged so tightly. I returned home and dad passed a day later.
Little did I know that would be the start of the "cancer era"-- a period lasting now over 8 years in which I have been so affected by people around and in my life who have been afflicted with cancer. My own mother, who struggled till three years ago... and two of my relatives, close friends, the mother of a friend, more recently the mother of another close friend...
"It seems like you have been given a gift,"my friend told me. Gift in the sense I am able to cope with cancer and all that it brings. It affects me deeply, but I am somehow able to stand still and strong and offer support and care to so many around me. (more recently, I detoured on my travels to visit the mother of a friend and that seemed to give her much comfort and support...). Of course, in all of this, I am but a bystander. Yet, in experiencing cancer from a distance , I have gained skills and know a lot more about side effects, getting better and stronger, and most of all am able to offer that emotional support that others do not necessarily have. That is the gift. The gift of compassion, of "suffering with" (Mitleid / medeleven) that you must experience in order to offer. It is extremely powerful, and in a way, I am blessed with it.
As I was speaking to the lawyer who is involved in closing the condo purchase, somehow the conversation drifted to the topic of cancer. She sounded tired, and looked so exhausted and frail, and she reveiled her father has been battling cancer for over 8 years. It is getting worse... cancerous sores on the skin, on the arms, and they have been in and out of hospital so often that she just feels physically sick hearing that word "hospital". We spoke, and she lamented how she is haunted by all this and has trouble sleeping, how she is afraid of losing the father for they are so close, inseparable.
She spoke of how she has felt distant toward friends and people who have no idea, absolutely no idea, how it is to deal with illness and death.
I listened and emphathised. Sometimes all you need to do is listen. And as you are listening, you feel the goosebumps and that warmth deep inside because you know exactly how that feels... maybe not exactly because feelings are so personal and so unqiue, but you know you have a much better understanding than others and that in those feel moments, the suffering, pain and desperatation of another fellow human being is being echoed and reflected back. It is the universe's way of connecting people who are like-minded and bringing them together to make them collectively stronger.
At the end of the conversation, I gave her a long, big hug. It may have seemed inappropriate for it was our first encounter and we had never met before (only spoken on the phone) . But it was most appropriate. It was more powerful and meaningful than words could ever express or say.
She was there when I got the phone call from my mother, who sounded so distraught and asked me to go home. Dad was in intensive care, and I rushed home. I remember just before I left and said goodbye to her, we stood by the tramtracks in The Hague. She shed tears in a show of compassion, and we hugged so tightly. I returned home and dad passed a day later.
Little did I know that would be the start of the "cancer era"-- a period lasting now over 8 years in which I have been so affected by people around and in my life who have been afflicted with cancer. My own mother, who struggled till three years ago... and two of my relatives, close friends, the mother of a friend, more recently the mother of another close friend...
"It seems like you have been given a gift,"my friend told me. Gift in the sense I am able to cope with cancer and all that it brings. It affects me deeply, but I am somehow able to stand still and strong and offer support and care to so many around me. (more recently, I detoured on my travels to visit the mother of a friend and that seemed to give her much comfort and support...). Of course, in all of this, I am but a bystander. Yet, in experiencing cancer from a distance , I have gained skills and know a lot more about side effects, getting better and stronger, and most of all am able to offer that emotional support that others do not necessarily have. That is the gift. The gift of compassion, of "suffering with" (Mitleid / medeleven) that you must experience in order to offer. It is extremely powerful, and in a way, I am blessed with it.
As I was speaking to the lawyer who is involved in closing the condo purchase, somehow the conversation drifted to the topic of cancer. She sounded tired, and looked so exhausted and frail, and she reveiled her father has been battling cancer for over 8 years. It is getting worse... cancerous sores on the skin, on the arms, and they have been in and out of hospital so often that she just feels physically sick hearing that word "hospital". We spoke, and she lamented how she is haunted by all this and has trouble sleeping, how she is afraid of losing the father for they are so close, inseparable.
She spoke of how she has felt distant toward friends and people who have no idea, absolutely no idea, how it is to deal with illness and death.
I listened and emphathised. Sometimes all you need to do is listen. And as you are listening, you feel the goosebumps and that warmth deep inside because you know exactly how that feels... maybe not exactly because feelings are so personal and so unqiue, but you know you have a much better understanding than others and that in those feel moments, the suffering, pain and desperatation of another fellow human being is being echoed and reflected back. It is the universe's way of connecting people who are like-minded and bringing them together to make them collectively stronger.
At the end of the conversation, I gave her a long, big hug. It may have seemed inappropriate for it was our first encounter and we had never met before (only spoken on the phone) . But it was most appropriate. It was more powerful and meaningful than words could ever express or say.
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