My Sister's Keeper

 I faced a daunting task that I had been avoiding, as before I wasn't emotionally ready, but last night, I decided it was time.  For me, I have to face the darkness in order to see the light.  As part of this soulful growth, I have heard and learned that it needs to be done.  I watched the movie, "My Sister's Keeper," in the privacy of my own home.....alone in my bedroom.  It may seem a trivial task to watch a fictional movie, but it was an emotional one for me because the storyline was so real.   The difficult choices, the family dynamics and emotions, the physical pain are all very real with cancer.  Marty knew it would be a tear jerker, and carefully I asked if he would like to join me.  Ultimately, I wanted to watch  this on my own, and I think he was relieved and sensed that I did.  It's not the sort of movie he would have liked anyway. So the tearful evening began, and it's okay, because in tears, healing begins.

While Chrissy was still in her physical form here, living amongst us in her body, she had wanted me to see it with her.  It seemed intriguing, but from the advertisements, I knew it would be too emotional.   Sitting there in the theater  beside my sister, knowing her thoughts and my thoughts traveling a similiar path as the sisters up on the screeen.  Like Chrissy, the cancer patient, Kate, was growing weary of the treatments, the experimental drugs, the lack of energy, the avoidance of the inevitable.  I said that I would do anything for her......even run down the highway naked, anything, but I could not sit in a movie theater with her, and watch a movie of two sisters who were similiar to Chrissy and me.  Although the facts of the movie were different, the age of the patient, the type of cancer and circumstances were different, the emotional questions and challenges, watching someone you love die of an illness that literally takes away all your faculties was still the same.

There's no avoiding it.....it just IS.......we are all destined to die.   The life lesson here is what do we do inbetween that time of birth and death.  What will we learn before our bodies perish?  What  are we meant to accomplish during our earthly time in these bodies of ours?  Often times, tough lessons in life prepare us for the next step, the next challenge.  Perhaps the illness of one family member could prepare us to care for another family member or friend.  I did not donate my body parts to Chrissy, as Anna did for her sister, Kate, but I was prepared to do so if needed.  While you are caring for a terminally ill loved one, you go into worker mode, and I would have given her anything, as would my other sisters, to give her a longer, more productive life.  I related to Anna, as she moved forward with a sense of strength around her family and sister, devastated by the physical pain Kate was experiencing but also realizing her role in this cancer walk.....not always understanding or accepting, but there is a KNOWING that we come to learn having a loved one suffer through a fatal illness.  There is a blessing in knowing.......and if I had the choice, I would want to know rather than experience death of a loved one suddenly.  In knowing, you have the option to do  or say whatever needs to be done.  Unfortunately for some, they deny and never say or do........and that generally leads to a wreckless or painful life of what ifs and shouldas.

I wouldn't have chosen this life of being diagnosed with breast cancer for my sister or anyone else.   No one would want this cross to bear.  Perhaps and most likely this cancer journey will surface again to someone I love or perhaps my own self.  With a painstaking love for my sister, I can say I was honored to be her keeper in whatever way she needed.  I would have it no other way.

"What you WANT is irrelevant, what you've CHOSEN is at hand"

      -Spock (Startrek)