Anyone Can Die

As I drank my coffee and scrolled through Facebook this morning, my newsfeed was full of tributes for Gord Downie and The Tragically Hip following last night's final concert in Kingston. Lovely, eloquent, heart felt tributes. So many who were genuinely overcome with emotion; a mixture of sadness, loss, pride. Love.

When Gord Downie announced in May that he had terminal brain cancer, Canadians were left reeling. How could this happen to a beloved rock icon? He's only fifty-two. But of course, cancer doesn't care how famous you are, or how young you are, or how much you are loved. It is cruel, and random and unfair.

Gord's decison to go public with his diagnosis has moved and inspired many. When he could have easily been defeated, he made the choice to continue doing what he loves most, touring and performing.

Cancer may decide when his life ends, but he will decide how it ends.

Anyone can die, but it takes a lot of courage to really live, especially in the face of a terminal illness.

Truth be told (and as it's Sunday morning, it seems as good of a time as any for a confession), I was never actually a big Tragically Hip fan. I almost feel like I need to apologize for that (how very Canadian of me.) I was more of a Rush, Great Big Sea, Spirit of the West kind of gal (and incidentally, speaking of inspiring, if you haven't seen it, you really should watch Spirit Unforgettable, a documentary about Spirit of the West's lead singer John Mann's battle with early onset Alzheimer's.)

You don't have to be a fan of The Tragically Hip though, to recognize the impact that Gord Downie and the Hip have had on Canadians. They are after all, "Canada's Band." They provided the sound track for many in our generation. And though I can honestly say I never danced to them in university, nor have they ever been on my running play list, I've listened to their music many times over the last twenty seven years.

Dan was a huge Hip fan. He owned every one of their cds. In fact, I'm pretty sure that stack of cds is still packed away in my basement somewhere. He used to love playing them when we were driving home from Petawawa, usually as we were coming out of Quebec and into northern New Brunswick, my least favourite part of the drive. He would belt out their songs at the top of his lungs, while I would sit in the passenger seat fuming. The madder I got, the louder he would sing (so unlike him). If you ever had the misfortune of hearing him sing, you will appreciate just how painful an experience that was. I'm not sure how many arguments we had over the years about the Hip but I know there were a lot.

The one and only time Dan saw them in concert was when he was in Kingston on a course. I'll never forget how excited he was, he talked about it for days afterwards. And as sick as I was of hearing about it at the time, I'm so glad now that he got to go to that concert. It's funny how sometimes the things you think don't matter that much actually matter the most.

Up until a few months ago, if you had asked me who the lead singer of The Tragically Hip was, I wouldn't have had a freaking clue. Me and a whole lot of others, I'd say. Now every Canadian knows Gord Downie's name (unless they've been living under a rock). And now they know what the word glioblastoma means.

Glioblastoma. The most common and aggressive cancer that starts in the brain. It's just one of over 120 different types of brain tumors. Twenty seven Canadians are diagnosed with brain tumors every single day. Approximately 55,000 Canadians are living with a brain tumor. Like Gord Downie, most of them are seemingly perfectly healthy, until one day out of the blue, they are not.

I spent Canada Day with two of my closest friends and their daughter Carolyn and her husband who were visiting Nova Scotia. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We spent the afternoon touring the vineyards and wineries of the valley; sampling the various local wines, beers and ciders. We had so much fun, you couldn't have asked for a more perfect way to spend the day. The next day, as they were driving home from another day of site seeing, Carolyn had a seizure in the back seat of the car. And then another. And then three more after they arrived at the hospital. Three days later they received the diagnosis, a diagnosis that no one ever wants to hear: she has a brain tumor. She's twenty seven. Twenty seven. She was perfectly healthy and then she wasn't.

I've known Carolyn since she was a spunky six year old lecturing any one who would listen on the dangers of smoking (she wasn't wrong there). I wasn't surprised when her mom told she me was going to become a nurse. I've lost count of the number of babies she's helped usher into the world. And now she's the one who needs care. But when she could easily become angry and bitter, she's not. She's positive and upbeat. Last week she baked cookies and brownies and took them to her co-workers, just because. Maybe we should all take the time to stop and bake cookies for someone. Just because.

Life is too god damn short (to not eat cookies, especially chocolate chip ones).

Anyone can die but it takes courage to really live.

Carolyn amazes me with her courage, strength, and positivity. She never chose to have a brain tumor but she chose not to let it define her. Just like Gord Downie.

Gord Downie has brought the subjects of grief and loss to the forefront of our collective consciousness. He has shown us that we while we don't always get to choose what happens to us, we absolutely get to choose how we respond to it. Tragedy doesn't have the final say. We do.

I may never consider myself a Tragically Hip fan, but I am a Gord Downie fan. Because of his very selfless decision to go public with his illness, he has helped raise awareness of a very devastating disease. He has brought hope to many who were hopeless. And money raised from his charity will go to finance research that could lead to a "series of potentially game-changing breakthroughs in the treatment of neurological disorders including tumors, cancer, dementia and stroke." Treatments that will, of course, come too late to save Gord himself, but that may, just may, come in time to make a difference to someone like Carolyn.

And that will be his most important legacy of all.

https://donate.sunnybrook.ca/braincancerresearch

"No dress rehearsal, this is our life."~ The Tragically Hip

I Could Never Be As Strong As You

"I could never be as strong as you. I could never do what you've done."

So many people have said that to me over the last almost two years. Often I hear it from people I think can handle anything. They seem so strong; they're so self-assured and confident, and yet they doubt they could make it through what I have.

Every single minute of every day someone is experiencing a tragedy; illness, abuse, rape, death. And every single day people rise in the face of these tragedies and not only survive but flourish. And we look at them in awe and say "Not me, I could never survive that. I could never be that strong." Perhaps it's human nature to underestimate what we are capable of.

I used to do the same thing.

Before I was widowed, I only knew one widow my own age. I met her several years ago when she just happened to move in beside us in military housing. In those days, a long time before the war in Afghanistan, there were mercifully few Canadian military casualties. My friend's husband was one of the exceptions. When I met her a few years after her husband's death, she was married to another soldier and moving forward with her life. We didn't talk about the loss of her first husband or her life as a widow. I didn't ask her any questions about it, partially because I didn't want to be intrusive, but also I suppose because I didn't really want to know, ignorance is bliss as they say and by discussing her husband's death, I'd have to acknowledge the possibility that it could happen to mine.

And I was young and naive. Of course, it wasn't going to happen to my husband, the mission he was on in Bosnia was SAFE. I marveled at her strength. She'd not only survived her husband's death but had married another soldier. There was no way I could do that.

I'd never be able to survive if anything happened to Dan, and I certainly would never be able to marry again, let alone to another soldier. I could never, ever be as strong as her.

And then one day my doorbell rang, and I was forced to learn just how strong I can be.

You never know how strong you can be until you have to be that strong.

As I stood at my front window that fateful afternoon, mentally preparing for what I was going to tell our children, I knew that this was NOT the end of my life. Our kids needed their mom, I couldn't let Dan's death take me away from them as well. And as I watched them walking into our driveway, knowing that I was about to break their hearts, I also knew it was up to me to help them put those hearts back together.

My path forward began that afternoon with the acknowledgement that my life was still worth living, even without Dan, as painful as that would be. I was so much more than just his wife and I AM so much more than just his widow. I wanted our children to know that life still had meaning, even without their father.

I knew that my actions would very much influence them. If I was negative, angry and bitter, they would be the same. And that's the last thing that I wanted for them.

I have tried to be a positive example to them since that day. Though there were plenty of times in the first weeks that I had to be stoic, I never wanted them to think being strong meant they always had to be tough and have a stiff upper lip. And for as many times as they saw me being stoic, there were many more times they saw me let the tears flow freely. I have never hidden my tears from them (Seriously what is it about commercials? They get me every time).

But strength isn't just about letting yourself express emotions. Strength is so much more than that.

Being strong means knowing when to ask for help, when to lean on others and also when to stand on your own.

It's not about having all of the answers (God knows I don't have them all, I'm good but I'm not that good).

It's about doing the best you possibly can, and knowing that sometimes you will make mistakes along the way.

Strength is knowing there will be times you fall and that's okay because it isn't really about the fall anyway, it's how you rise afterwards that's important.

And strength is knowing that happiness (or unhappiness) is a choice, no one can make us happy but ourselves.

Strength is owning your happiness.

I recently received a message from a young, newly married military wife. She wanted to let me know how much she admired my strength and courage. And in an echo of a young wife I knew so many years ago, she told me she didn't think that she could be as strong as me. She could never survive if she ever lost her husband, and she definitely didn't think she could get married again, especially not to another soldier.

When I read her message, I realized I had come full circle. And so I told her what I'm sure my friend would have told me all those years ago if I'd had the courage to voice my own fears to her, I told her the truth.

 I survived my husband's death because I made the choice to survive.

I made the choice to accept the unacceptable. I made the choice to move forward with my life. I made the choice to be happy.

And though I may have somehow made it appear easy (I've heard that one a couple of times lately) it's not easy. Life rarely is. Sometimes it's difficult, and stressful, and complicated. But it's also wonderful, amazing and incredibly rewarding.

I hope my young friend never has to learn just how strong she can be, but if she does, I hope she too can make the choice to survive, to accept the unacceptable and to move forward with her life.

I hope that she remembers, even as happiness may seem to forget her for a bit, that happiness is a choice.

Life should be lived, not endured.

Ultimately we are the ones who are responsible for how we respond in the face of tragedy. We can rise up and do our very best, or we can admit defeat.

If we admit defeat, tragedy wins. I refused to let tragedy win.

Something awful happened to my life but my life is far from awful.

Strength is letting go of the life you had planned and embracing the life you do have. And I have done just that.

I may not know how the rest of my life will go, but I do know this. I'm strong enough to live it.

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."~Mahatma Gandhi