Comments on: Positive Shmositive

By: rayandmave

rayandmave — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:46:14 +0000

Hi Well written it is so true as everyone does keep telling you how you should feel but how can they know whats going on in the mind.
Thats why i write my blog so that friends and family can understand what is going on in my mind.
Mavis xx

http://rayandmave.wordpress.com/

By: JenLive!

JenLive! — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:02:23 +0000

Very, very well stated. I haven’t had someone close to me battle cancer, but I war against depression. Believing that this enemy is due to a lack of fighting, or lack of faith, only makes it worse. I agree, we have to be allowed to be where we are. We can’t move on from where we are until we know and accept exactly where that is.

By: Tracy

Tracy — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:53:29 +0000

That was such a great post. It made me think and hopefully I will be careful with my words always.

By: Bev

Bev — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:33:11 +0000

Oh, how I understand! I would say things like that to my mom. Just yesterday I thought about what I’d said to her. She, too, must have been scared. My positive thinking mantras must not have helped at all. I still wish I would have had more truthful discussions with her about how she felt.I think I didn’t want to talk about it because it would make it more real. Yesterday I went back to a town we used to live in. It was the last place we lived as a family of four. Everything was normal then, even trivial. The calm before the storm, you know? I saw her in her nurse’s uniform, the one she was so proud to wear after going back to school. I justsobbed and sobbed yesterday. And like you, I told myself that I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I was doing so well. I DON’T like to allow myself to feel the pain. To ever feel like I did in the beginning. I think that we will always be motherless daughters and will always feel it.
After my mom died, people would tell me how strong I was. I did not feel strong. I felt God gave me my son when he did, because if I didn’t have him, I would never have even gotten out of bed in the morning. Seriously.
When will we get over the deaths of our mothers? Never, and that is a testimony to what special women they were. I still want my mom every day, but there are still some days when all I want is ‘my mommy’, you know.

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:52:07 +0000

That was such a perfect post!

By: Tonya

Tonya — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:41:06 +0000

Wow. Great post.

You’re right, Val. My father died last September after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer in April. It does seem funny, trying to figure out how to be and what to say. My dad at first acted like it was nothing, that he was resigned to it because, as he said, “We’re all gonna die someday.” It was later that he acted scared. He was only 59 years old. And he was a fighter too.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being positive, when you can be. But there is something to be said for feeling what needs to be felt. Being positive doesn’t mean that you deny your negative feelings. When you have those feelings, you should be still with them. Let them be. Wallow if you have to. The more you fight to try to change the negative in to the positive, the longer the negativity will stick around. What you resist, persists.

If you’re feeling a feeling, FEEL IT COMPLETELY! That is the only way it will pass.

And being positive may or may not cure cancer or anything for that matter. The difference is that maybe you can feel a bit more peace as your body is disintegrating into the nothingness from which it came. My dad fought it all the way out and it was difficult to see. I often wonder… if he really did resign himself to the “we all die anyway” statement, them maybe his transition wouldn’t have been so difficult for him. Then maybe he wouldn’t have had just anger and regret.

I know he was scared. It was good for me to see because it allowed me to show him that I, too, was frightened. And that was the first time that we actually shared, without masks of pride, how we felt since I was a little girl. It was a blessing to me.

I’m happy he’s at peace now.

Sorry for the long comment. You really touched me with your post.

By: Mich

Mich — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:32:45 +0000

“And then it dawned on me. The men who died in the first minutes of Normandy weren’t any less warriors than those who fought that day and went on to survive til the end of World War II.”

I think that is an inspired conclusion, Val. When my dearest aunt, who was almost like a mom, was diagnosed with cancer for the second time, I was in complete denial that she would die even until the very day she did die. It took me years to face the things you name here. Truth be told, I’m still coming to grips with some of it. I think it takes us a life-time to figure out our own stories and how they intersect with those of the ones we love.

……And then, by extension, we are all of us warriors.