The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done

 

 

I’ve been wondering what the hardest thing is that I’ve ever done.

Once I was in the South Seas and panicked when I tried to go under water to scuba dive.  This was a surprise because only the time before, I had easily submerged into shark infested black waters of the night and spent a week diving with predators just an arm’s length away.  This second time though, it took everything in me to calm my shaking body and literally force myself, push myself into the waters below.

But in truth, that turned out to be fun.

Labor was hard.  Labor with twins harder I guess.  But when you don’t have a choice, something is not really hard.  You just have to get on with it.

It was really hard last month when my father died. The last day of his life, he was suddenly, unexpectedly shackled with pain.  He looked with quiet, courageous bewilderment at his arms and his legs as his leukemia- laced blood, now sludge, turned his limbs into fire.  My hands, he would say.  My legs.  We doused him with morphine.

Those weren’t really the hard parts though because my father never cried out with pain and anyway, the drugs were right there.  The hardest part was when my father was most feeling and most alive, not the moments he was most dead.

 There was that one moment when I told him everything would be okay.  I told him we were around him, that we would be there.  With a sudden keen awareness and a look of absolute clarity, my father turned to me and asked “Does this mean you are taking over?” 

“Yes, dad” I told him “It’s okay. We are here.  We are taking over.” 

And suddenly, with a coherency that belied the chaos of the morning, my father looked me straight in the eyes and said “oh sh-t”.

My brother laughs poignantly saying my father must have been pretty upset that WE were taking over.  But in truth, I knew.  At that moment, my father realized that I was telling him he was about to die.

____________________________________

 Once I saw a patient for just one consultation.  She had been bingeing and throwing up every day for years.  We met for 45 minutes and I never saw her again.  Except that a year later, I got a phone call from her. 

“I’ve stopped being bulimic” she announced.  “I wanted to thank you”. 

I couldn’t imagine what I had said to be of any help.  Of course I asked. 

“You told me that stopping bulimia would be the hardest thing I’d ever do” she told me.  “I kept waiting for someone to tell me something that would make it easier. And of course it never got easier.  But when I realized it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I got ready for hard.  I braced myself.  One night at a time, I stopped throwing up”.

Now we all know, stopping any addictive behavior is never that easy.  In fact, yes, it is likely the hardest thing you’ll ever do.  But what I loved about this phone call was not only that someone was telling me that  I had said something that actually worked.  But, even more importantly, this young stranger put into words something I had never thought of in terms of recovery.   She made me realize that in order to recover from anything, you have to stop being afraid of hard.

_______________________________________

I didn’t know that what I said to my father was hard until I heard his response.  What was hard was not what I said, but the aftermath of what I said, knowing (or thinking I knew) what my father must have felt in return.

But that feels easy in contrast to asking someone not to go to a behavior that has been calming and stabilizing night after night, to ask someone to face “hard” and have to really question, a minute at a time, just what is so hard about hard.

Oddly, that last moment with my father was one of the most moving, intense, awakening days I have ever had.  I miss him a lot.  But it made me think a lot about hard moments. When a hard moment is filled with love or courage or self-respect, hard immediately turns into something else.

If only my father were here to teach me more lessons.  That’s hard.  jb

Comments

[LR]

Stop being afraid of hard..that rings so true for me. Thank you!

[Kamagra]

I do not usually like to read anything, but after I got to hear about your articles from my friends, It instigated me to read and now I know that my friends were true and I am happy to have followed what my friends said to me.

[Judith Brisman, Ph.D]

thanks for the comments-- they help me to continue to be inspired to write-- judith

[kamagra bestellen]

Now that I live a life that is more grounded, organized and satisfying I still have times where I feel sad or overwhelmed.

[discount new era hats]

We all have had dreams, fantasies that one day we can fly day outside, but look back and think reality, our dreams have been cut fragmentation, we pay too much to dream, and finally wait till that day http://www.newerahatfactory.com/