Mind Over Matter
It has been said that the head follows the heart...sometimes right off of a cliff.
It has been said that, "where there is a will, there is a way".
In the Fall of 2014, Robin Williams committed suicide and, later, a lesser-known
female named Brittany Maynard did the same thing through a guise called,
"Death with Dignity".
Both individuals were facing some serious health issues and, undoubtedly, mental issues as well.
No, not that they were crazy, but rather that their diagnoses were so severe, it seemed that
neither was able to see past them.
I had the pleasure of spending many hours today with a sweet friend I will call my "Lake Friend".
When Big Strong Man and I were first married, we lived on a precious and lively lake: Lake Reily.
This is not Lake Reily, however, it is pretty close!
(To find out more info, click this link.)
During the summer months, you could expect to find people swimming, fishing, and rope-jumping
all over this lake at any given time. During the winter, ice fishing.
It was a beautiful community and we were delighted to be members of it.
We lived in our little lake cottage for almost a year when we first found out we were pregnant
and decided to move closer to family.
All of my family hails from the rolling mountains and vast wilderness of Pennsylvania, and, with
the exception of one of his sisters and her husband, Big Strong Man's family had all packed-up
and moved south to the Carolinas.
North Carolina sounded so exotic. So warm.
We decided to trade in our northern upbringings and attempt this this new and foreign terrain.
Prior to our great move south, however, we lived on Lake Reily and made a handful of wonderful
friends. Those we played cards with weekly; those who so kindly shared their dock with us for
fishing and diving; those who made homemade biscuits and gravy for Big Strong Man, since I
could not then, and still can not, stand the smell or the look of them; and those who helped us
move in, and then out, of our cabin.
Graciously, we still keep in touch with some of them.
My Lake Friend and her husband, however, are the two neighbors Big Strong Man and I still have
the most communication with.
About a year ago, my Lake Friend was diagnosed with Chrohn's disease.
When her doctors found it, she was told that surgery was eminent, else she would die.
Just like that.
As she and I spent a couple of hours driving around Indiana in search of some maroon truck, we
spoke a lot and she said that her life has become a decision of mind over matter.
Daily, mind over matter.
For over twenty years, she felt sick and weak, over-tired. She had assumed that was normal and
lived her life.
For over twenty years she was sick and didn't know it.
When you hear that you can die.
...If you do not have this surgery NOW.
That this disease can kill you....
Those are the moments when you have to re-evaluate your life.
I am not judging.
I mean, that is not my heart.
When Robin and Brittany decided to end their lives, I pray and hope that they knew God.
That they each had a conversation with Him before doing what they did.
It saddens me, though.
It makes me sick to my stomach, and hurts my heart dearly.
As though I knew them personally.
Robin Williams did this when I was at my worst during this third pregnancy.
Not one of my pregnancies has been easy on me, and this one certainly took the most
mental strain.
I would drive to the doctor and imagine how "nice" it could be if I was hit by a car and
died right there.
This could all be over, I would think.
This pain and misery my body was facing.
This inability to escape from the depression I was going through.
The very real fear of each new day.
I absolutely hated how I felt.
HATED.
I lived in this place for just shy of four months.
When Robin committed suicide, I felt as though he betrayed me.
Me, and everyone else who was suffering and still living.
I don't think he took the "easy way out", as some people may argue, I don't think death is
easy at all, even if you inflict it on yourself.
Perhaps that is the least easy of them all.
When I learned about Brittany, I was still sick and not yet in a "good place".
For anyone who has dealt with or is dealing with depression, we seem to understand one
another in this place that the rest of the world cannot see.
This land of suffocation and the inability to breath- sometimes literally.
Brittany chose to share her story with the public before she completed her final act of
taking some medicated death.
She shared openly about how she was sick and her body was turning on her.
Her quality of life was disappearing right before her and she seemed to have had lost hope.
Many, MANY, people reached out to her.
You don't have to do this...
God can heal you...
You still have so much to live for....
Others were blunt and reprimanded her choice stating that "D.w.D." was really just
"glorified suicide".
Telling her that she was sending herself straight to Hell.
Accusing her that her actions were selfish and not at all what was "best for her husband
and mother", who would more likely than not have to take care of her every need in time.
That was Brittany's hope: to "spare" her beloved.
In her end, she chose to take the medication she was given under this act and she took her
life on the bed she shared with her husband, in a house they moved into so that she could
legally pursue this choice of death under her "own terms".
Neither she nor Robin chose mind over matter.
Neither chose this, and both are dead.
My beautiful Lake Friend is choosing mind every day.
Every. Single. Day.
She is not given a sentence, as I was with my every pregnancy.
(Nine months tops and this would be over.)
She will very likely have this disease for the remainder of her life.
The thing about her, however, is that she is still living.
Everyday, she chooses life.
To find out more about Chrohn's Disease, check out Chrohn's Disease Awareness.
yours, gomommyblogger
No comments:
Post a Comment