If you had your life to live over again what would you do different ?
I have been pondering this question for awhile now seeing I am heading down
the back stretch or as one guy put it: “I am in the fall season of life”
I have just come off a pretty challenging winter and early spring having lost my young and only brother to cancer. There were only two of us and while we had different interests and hung with different crowds I do believe there is something to the phrase “Blood is thicker than water”
Regardless of the family structure and the distances we can and do sometimes put between us and our siblings we cannot get away from the fact that we are part of a family or now in many cases families.
I would be lying if I said Bruce, my brother and I were close . We were once as boys, he looked up to me as his big brother, that is until he grew bigger.
We came together for seasons over the years and in the end I was there once again as Big brother having the bitter sweet opportunity to spend several weeks close at hand with him as he moved towards the end of his life, battling the cancer that consumed his body. He fought a courageous battle to the end. While the pain is still pretty fresh I feel it is helpful for me to process my journey with him, most particularly the early days and the last week.
I am reminded by the movie Shadowlands staring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger
For those of you reading this who do not know the story, it is about the life of author C.S Lewis a.
Theologian and professor who spends most of his time lecturing, reading and writing. That is until
he meets Debra in his sixties. He has never married and while I do not want to give away the
story in event that you wish to watch it I will share only a quote from the movie to set up
where I am going with this letter.
Debra has cancer and while she is in remission she and Jack which is what Lewis’s friends
called him, have ducked into a shelter out in Golden Valley. Jack, a scholar, says to Debra
‘I don’t want to be in another place than in this moment’
Now think about that. He is a very accomplished and highly respected author, professor etc and he chooses this simple situation to express his greatest Joy. She looks at Jack and says “We need to talk about it” meaning her cancer. He rebukes her by saying, “Not now.” She in turn says “Jack pain is part of the loving”
You will need to see the end of the movie to understand why.
“Pain is part of the loving” Hmm I have discovered over the past twenty five plus years as
a counsellor, human being, brother, son and friend that most of us want to or try to avoid
taliking about the pain. Especially us guys. Fearing most in part that if we did share our
pain with another guy, he may say something like suck it up; change the topic or say
something to try and fix it as if it will get better.
Once again I was faced with more change. My brother and I were inseparable as boys. We shared the same tin tub used for baths together and then a few years later the same fox holes as we referred to going under the covers when the war broke out in our family home.
This is another story which will need to wait for another time.
God promises to meet our needs and not give us anymore than we can handle. I have often wondered about this. Perhaps you have to?