Life is rarely clean and easy. We live our lives on this beautiful earth, usually with some sense that we are living our plan. Many of us experience the messiness of life- altering interruptions – major adjustments that cause us to re-plan, re-group, re-route. This can be a rare opportunity – an opening - to re-evaluate why we are here, and what must change. When my husband was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia while on business in Brussels in February, we were plunged deep into mess. We had been beautifully adjusting to empty nest, enjoying each other’s company, our new careers – his, Head of U.S. Operations with a European company, and mine, Life Coach with a growing business. We were travelling more often, and enjoying watching our son, Evan, live his college life, seeing him when we could.
Then Tim became very ill; and the outcome…well, we had no idea what it would be. Everything was being done to stabilize him in those first critical days, and Evan and I did what it took, dropping everything for a full month (Evan took a leave from college) to be with him while he got well enough to come home.
And come home we did, continuing the journey with more chemo, and a hope for cure with a stem-cell transplant. We are in day 30 of the critical 100 days post-transplant, and his stem cells are officially engrafting. He’s doing really well, feels healthy, and he again has a head full of hair – but curly now!
Tim still works, especially when he’s feeling good, staying very involved in his business from home. Evan finished both winter and spring quarters in the spring, and just finished summer classes – now home with us for a little while before fall quarter starts up.
And me? I put my coaching business on hold while in Brussels. Once back, I signed up for Master Coach Training and I engaged with a couple of clients to help them with the admin portion of their businesses, excited to do this work for them. My mind told me I could handle it…that I wanted to do it. I thought between that and the training, it would enrich my ‘spare’ time until I could ramp up my coaching business again.
But something I did not expect has happened, and I’m still making sense of it. It seems that my inner wisdom is again taking over. The only thing I seem to want to do right now, with any gusto and enthusiasm, is to be caregiver/wife/partner to Tim and mom to Evan (though I rarely ‘mother’ him any more). So instead of the admin work, I cook…or grocery shop…or clean…or sit with Tim and Evan and play Rummy. I barely have the emotional or mental bandwidth for my Master Coach class.
What I want to do is to be there for Tim, as his gate-keeper and protector. It’s my privilege and honor. Watching and learning from him as he has handled so much with grace and seeming ease - when I know first had it hasn’t been easy at all - has been inspirational…my husband, my teacher.
I also want to relish Ev. He is so present, helping us when needed, having dinner with us most nights – we rarely saw him for dinner in summers past! He’s doing the loveliest job of just being here…with simple grace and love…until school starts again. My son – he’s still my teacher, as he has been since my pregnancy.
For my part, I am experiencing, thoroughly and without reservation, the deepening of intimacy and love and respect, not only with my husband and son, but in an even more profound way with myself – intimately, lovingly, and respectfully honoring who I have been - and who I am becoming.
It seems that this illness of Tim’s has profoundly changed all of us. And though I knew this would eventually be the case, I’ve only just integrated and acknowledged this at a level I can fully embrace because we have arrived at this juncture of our journey. We have all grown and expanded in ways hard to explain…it’s still a holy place, and very mysterious – full of love and tenderness and support.
I’m learning... what being broken open means and what being a woman means in all its glorious roles; how to give care to needy souls, needy psyches, to women trying to make a difference in their own and others’ lives; and contemplating how I am going to serve going forward, fully, in this life of mine.
I want to know more about love… and this simple, beautiful thought brings me to tears…which tells me it’s time…time to honor the internal voice – to honor the pull and where it leads.
It reminds me of what Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee said in the movie Wake Up – “The Divine within you is struggling to make itself known to you - and is taking you on a journey it wants to go on.”
Space is opening …has opened … for whatever wants to happen.
And even though it feels like a letting go of all my plans and an unintended pause, there is a deep belief that the newly forming path has purpose. And I also know this…from the outside, it may or may not look much different than what it currently is, but I have been forever changed in my heart.
I am to allow it to unfold, my task being to follow my soul’s desire, letting life lead me instead of me trying to lead life.
I know, without really knowing why or how, that this is necessary…and I will endeavor to whole-heartedly trust this process…this gift.
(Please tell me…have you had experiences like this? What have they been, and what was the outcome? Was it easy to honor your inner wisdom, or did you resist for a length of time? I’d love for you to share your experience.)