Friends,

It has been about a year since my wife’s scans began to come back as “inconclusive”, but the various techs and doctors told us not to worry too much and said that she is so young and it didn’t look like cancer. At home I echoed this sentiment and tried to quiet my wife’s growing anxiety. This Easter Season will mark one year when the tests stopped being inconclusive, and we knew she had cancer, and that our lives would be forever changed. There were stages through this whole process. The worst was the month when we didn’t know her stage or prognosis. Getting her official diagnosis was surprisingly joyful, because her stage and type meant she would almost certainly make it through, though she would have especially intense treatment. Once we got the prognosis and plan, we did all of the preparation for chemo, which was surprisingly intense. After treatment got going we were essentially along for the ride down a path with many stages, each with its own challenges and complications, and all we could do was hold on. In the beginning I knew that I wasn’t ok, but so much time has gone by it is… curious…disturbing… maybe “interesting” is the right word? I’m disquieted with how normal it all feels. I still know that I am not okay, but it’s more of an afterthought than something on the forefront.

In Albert Camus’s novel, “The Stranger” (I hate this book as much as I love his other work “The Plague”) the main character muses to himself while in prison that even with enough time one cannot get used to not having cigarettes. Of course, leave it to the mid-century French Existentialist to make smoking the epitome of what someone cannot live without, but he does have a point. Time has a horrible and merciful effect of making us numb to anything, whether it is wonderful, terrifying, absurd, meaningful, or just something you did to get by. I don’t think I could have made it through this past year without this effect. If I had felt the full weight of the struggle Leandra was facing every day, I would have been a constant bundle of nerves, and would likely have missed some profoundly wonderful things along the way, like milestones in our sons’ growth, moments of happiness and peace, and fun days at the pool. So many other great and difficult things have been happening concurrent with fighting cancer, that sometimes I forget that I am not okay.

A part of me thinks that giving up or taking on things for Lent is innately fraught. There’s no perfect way of going about it, and egos almost always weasel their way into our best laid plans to get closer with God. Lent is supposed to refine our relationship with God, but we cannot help but sabotage our own efforts, at least to some degree. If there is some great vice or habit that we are overly dependent upon, we can give it up for Lent and pretend that we have control over that vice. With the help of the numbing effect of time we are not terribly different than the character from “The Stranger”, and our lesson is that, with time, we can ultimately learn to live without anything. This is empowering in a sad mid-century French Existentialist sort of way, but it does not sit right for me with what Lent can be about.

I went into this season less gung-ho than usual for my Lenten disciplines, and for the first time in recent memory, I haven’t stuck to my Lenten plan. There are many excuses to be made. Someone has been sick in our home for months at this point, time is at a premium, and oh yeah, we started off this penitential season with jumping into radiation and getting a crash course in appealing insurance decisions. Regardless of why, I simply did not have it in me to do my normal Lenten thing that shoots me from the winter slumps to summer vigor.

I am not okay, and remembering this truth has made this season particularly meaningful. Time can numb joys and pains, but it doesn’t take it away. Trying to do my “normal” Lenten thing and failing felt like jumping out of bed and being reminded of a sprained ankle whose pain came back to life with activity. It was simultaneously a sharp reminder that I am not ready to feel normal again, and a weirdly refreshing epiphany that you can’t watch the one you love the most go through something like that unphased. It would be disturbing if we made it through this not emotionally beat up. I’ve been letting time and routine do it’s numbing effect so we could make it through the hardest parts, but in an effort to get back to my normal self through a Lenten discipline I accidently gave up the lie of being okay.

Time is weird. It seems to go faster and faster as we get older, and it slowly dulls the most important things in our lives. I will forever be in awe of being a father. I will forever be grateful that I am loved by my family. I will forever be thankful for the support we’ve received during this terrible time. I will forever feel heartbroken for what my wife has had to go through this past year. I will forever feel the fear of that first month before we knew exactly what we were facing. I will go home in about an hour and evidence of all of this will be right there as Theo clings to me, Leandra greets us when she gets home from radiation, and when I see the small mountain of Tupperware in the kitchen left over from delivered meals, and it will all feel normal.

Lent comes around every year when things start to come back to life. Regardless of the efficacy of our disciplines bringing us closer to God, the flowers will continue to bloom and buds appear on trees as a promise that brighter days are ahead. Our resolve in our Lenten disciplines may be a moot point after all. Of course, we should always try to follow through with our promises, but this year I was surprised to find Christ in that honest and timeless space where all of the hurt, wonder and awe feel raw, and all I had to do was fail.

-Nick