My brother, Dennis’s, situation continues to decline.
He thought he got some good news when they told him that the tumor had shrunk,
but what they didn’t tell him until a few days later was that his lungs were
full of a cancerous fluid and it has spread to his spine. For this reason, they
are not starting radiation as planned. They give him about a 5% chance of
surviving for more than a year. It makes it highly unlikely that I will ever
see him again unless this transfer comes through. I have been calling Dennis
every Friday. I can hear the changes in his voice. He sounded at his best and
strongest during the week he had off from chemo.
In the Come as
You Are piece this week (the last piece in the book), Fleck pointed out the
value in having someone from your youth to grow old with, so that you can share
and help each other remember the people and stories from that period in your
life. It made me think of Joe and what a devastating loss his death was to me.
Of course, Dennis is another one. He’s the only person in the world who shared
my misbegotten childhood from its earliest days. When he goes, it will be an
incalculable loss.
I liked this week’s sermon by Ana Levy-Lyons, “The
Return of the Real.” In it she stresses the need to integrate the image we
project to the world with the person we truly are. She points out that “integrate”
and “integrity” share the same root word. She says that so many people today
will post on Facebook that they are heading out to the soup kitchen to feed the
homeless so they can bask in the approbation of others. The real value of the
action lies in the doing of it. It called to mind something I remember hearing
from, of all people, Dr. Laura on the radio, “Integrity is what you do when no
one is watching.” All of my self-esteem
was vested in the image I projected to others, to the point that I believed
that this was who I truly was. I talked the talk without being willing to walk
the walk. Lesson learned.
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