2023. It’s been a challenge.
Every year challenges us, some shared, some unique, challenges none the less.
This year though, has been the most challenging for me.
In bitter sweet irony, considering I’m researching for a PhD in Resilience, 2023 has tested my own & exhausted it, but more on that later.
To set context, in March, my Dad Graham, was diagnosed with prostrate cancer, assigned a treatment regime & prospects were good, full recovery expected.
At the same time, my Father in Law George, was diagnosed with skin & lung cancer, again treatment agreed, prospects good.
I took time out to take my Dad to treatment, spending hours in waiting rooms with men in the same position, all soldiering on with gallows humour. It was strangely comforting.
3 weeks in to a 4 week programme, my Dad got a call to go in early, his bloods were showing some signs of abnormality. We went along as usual, expecting some update & then off to get his treatment.
But not to be. My Dad was told he had the rarest form of blood cancer & there was no cure. Treatment would only prolong his life temporarily & without it he had weeks.
True to form & my Dad being my Dad, after 5 minutes of sorrow, he was determined to live as long as possible & agreed to treatment. He wanted to live to see his great grandchild born. However this wasn’t what he was used to, this was the most aggressive there is.
Just a few weeks after diagnosis, I lost him. After sitting with him for 72 hours. To the cancer, to the ferocity of the treatment.
My world stopped. Literally stopped. My tank was empty. Or so I thought.
Just 6 days later, George passed. In a wicked parallel to complications of treatment. The source of potential cure, the reason for his last day. I stayed in the room whilst he was taken by the undertakers, as no one else could find the strength.
Now, in the position of losing both, I found myself comforting all around. My wife, children, family, in laws. A role I strangely relished, realising it meant I didn’t have to think about me.
My Dad was buried on Monday, George on Tuesday. I spoke at both. I comforted at both. I functioned at both.
Days passed, weeks passed.
Then in October our youngest son Sam was attacked by a group of men walking home on his own. He was beaten so badly he was hospitalised, needing facial reconstruction surgery. It’s a call you don’t want to take, a journey you don’t want to make.
Physically he’s recovering, but we don’t know the real extent of the damage.
In the grand scheme of things there’s a lot worse going on in the world. Rationally I know that.
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor once said about being stressed by external forces that, “the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
But as the wonderful Matt Haig says, finding that power can be near impossible, you can’t just click your fingers and be rid of all that hurt.
Rationality has no place here. Rationality is conscious thought, it’s very real, yet you are completely numb to it.
In these situations your emotions are completely in command. No matter how many times or how forceful your rational thoughts are, your emotions simply win. Every single time.
I know the 3 things the most resilient people do.
- They accept things happen.
- They manage what they can manage.
- They only do things that help them.
Rationally I get that. Easy. But the rational bit isn’t in control here. The emotions are.
Emotions deplete you, empty your tank. For extra impact they cut off the supply too. They are a law unto themselves and they are a cruel master.
I don’t have the answers. But I know the enemy.
I know time heals, it’s just I don’t know how long that will be. But I want it to be short & I want other people’s to be shorter still.
If 2023 has been a test, it’s been a sadistic one. But it’s one I’m determined to find answers to.
It’s what George would have wanted to talk about.
It’s what my Dad would have expected of me.