Content warning: This post discusses cancer and impending death. Please read at your own discretion.
Time is fickle. We’ve all experienced that phenomenon where the long-awaited holiday seems to take an age to arrive, only to pass in the blink of an eye. Or the thirty-minute run that drags painfully slow, while that same half an hour reading a good book seems fleeting.
Someone close to me has just received a devastating prognosis. Two-months, or thereabouts, before cancer will take them from this world and the people who love them. We all know, theoretically anyway, that we’re going to die. When I was a child, Sister Francis Clare reminded us at the start of every school assembly that ‘death is the only thing we know to be true’. But, and I can only speak for myself here, the idea of it actually happening is unfathomable.
An Uncertain Time
For my person, this is a literal death sentence. A finite future filled with uncertainty about almost everything. Everything that is, except the pain – which will continue to worsen until the very end.
For those closest to them, it means a life in limbo; time paused, every free moment now dedicated to Them.
It’s funny, you don’t realise how much time you actually have until it’s taken away. I am forever idling away hours on unnecessary tasks – I’m looking at you, Instagram – only to complain later about my endless chores and lack of time.
But when something like this happens, the focus shifts. All those things naturally fall away, almost as though they never existed at all.
Time now is measured by how my many hours my person has slept. How long they’ve been pain free. The number of times they’ve managed to eat in a day. Long hours spent on well-worn sofas in a crowded living room. The same handful of harried people; tempers frayed, minds blown by the news that none of us will ever fully comprehend.
There’s Beauty There
Out of the devastation are moments that shine like suns. Deep conversations on the bed, just the two of us; life lessons imparted, stories shared like folklore. A bond strengthened more in two-weeks than that already developed over decades. Then, time seems to stand still, the outside world, the reality of what awaits, forgotten, if only for a while.
When I return home, time seems so abundant that I don’t know how to spend it. The chores I usually bemoan are suddenly a gift. A couple of hours in front of the TV, an unimaginable luxury.
Writing Time
But it’s time spent in words that return me to myself. Head spinning, heart sore, everything disappears once I drop into flow. Unable to fully access my creativity, I lose myself in reading instead of putting words onto the page. Connecting with my writing community, feeding back on their work ahead of that next – hopefully final – draft. In doing so, I’m learning – preparing – to write better when the time is right.
I already knew that I loved to write. That it’s the thing I was placed on this earth to do. That this is how I chose to spend my time even now, only cements that certainty.
You Can’t Stop Time
This isn’t my first experience of this kind. But those, due to location, felt more abstract. Now, I am at the coal face – death so close I must ignore the urge to look away. Of those privileged enough to be administering Their care, I am one of the least affected. Still, I am scared. Frightened of having to witness Their pain. Of maybe being the one to see Them home. Of whether I’m strong enough to do what must be done.
Time stretches both endless and finite before me, a double edged sword. I can’t stop it. All I can do is remain present, focus intent on the person who needs it most. Do the next right thing, moment by moment, willingly and with love.
