The ripple effect

02.27.2012

Hi everyone,

I won’t lie, the past three weeks have been nothing short of hell. I could never have expected how challenging the first round of chemo would be, and the toll it would take on my mighty little body. I worked hard to get in top physical shape (and as close to mental shape as one can expect to be in my circumstance) in preparation for surgery. I have done chemo before and although it was not easy, it did not prepare me for what was suppose to be “a well tolerated protocol” this time around. I’ll spare you of the details but suffice to say my little body took a serious beating. I lost around 6 pounds that I could not afford to lose and more critically, the pain, nausea and discomfort did a lot of collateral damage to my mental outlook.

That being said, I am sitting here typing this update in disbelief that in only a handful of days I am feeling almost back to feeling “normal”. As recently as Wednesday, walking to the sofa was a challenge. My dear friend Harry held a healing circle for me surrounded by friends near and far – I turned a corner that day on many levels. More on that in a minute. I cannot express enough how much all your emails, cards, art projects and special deliveries have meant to me during this time.

I am scheduled to start round #2 today (Monday) but I have decided to delay by a few days to get my system back into as close to optimal as I can. I will be meeting with my oncologist Monday morning to see how we can adjust the doses to make it more manageable and to review my first set of blood work. Fingers and toes crossed for some good news in the tumour marker results (it’s a bit early to have any measurable results, but hey, any drop in numbers would be good right now).

Over the past two days, with my mind and body returning to me, I’ve been pretty introspective. Harry asked me “what is my purpose” (at least I think that was the question, heard through my slumped over heap of tears). When you are at the proverbial bottom – and let me tell you I was at the bottom of the deep end at that moment – there is a surrender I cannot fully describe. My answer came from this deep place inside me. My voice answered but it was not the me I know answering – it came from deep inside me, it was like my soul had a voice for a moment – it was pretty wild. The answer was so simple it surprised me. Because this is a question I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. A question I have had this deep, deep need to know but have always felt eluded me. I guess I always thought it was going to be some kind of “change the world” purpose of life epiphany so I was kind of scared of it somehow. The answer was simply: “I just want to be me” (I may have also said something about gardening…) I’ve been thinking a lot about that answer since. And the universe, it it’s strange and mysterious ways, has been helping me with confirmations – in the form of your emails. yes, your emails.

My whole adult life, I have felt like I have not lived any great purpose – it has eluded me, always a few steps ahead of me. Unreachable. But I realized that just by being me, my little life and my little world – has touched and changed others. It is so simple it scares me and at the same time makes me laugh. It’s that proverbial ripple effect. The little stone that is plunked in the smooth lake. Except all this time, I truly did not realize it. It was two emails in particular that illuminated this to me, but inspired by so many others from all of you. The first one was written by my friend Dana. You can read it in the ‘send a message to Sam’ section of this blog. This email arrived when I was at the depth of misery. I read it and felt so humbled, so deeply touched by her words. Dana and I met around 8 years ago in a 2-hour customs line-up in Costa Rica airport. I could never have imagined how this chance crossing of two souls could have had a ripple effect so great – for both of us. Until I received Dana’s beautiful note, I had NO IDEA that I had an impact on her life. All this time, I felt that SHE had an impact on MY life. I wondered if she knew that? Guess what Dana, you did.

The second email was from my friend Lara. Lara is getting ready to spend 6 months living in a hut in a rural village in Uganda doing research work on her PHd. She is one amazing girl and I am so proud to know her. Lara’s email went like this:

Where would I be without having met you?
Surely not as happy, not as fulfilled,
not here, not now….
and most importantly, I would certainly not be
me.

I would not be me
without you.

I am without words to express how I feel reading this. I know this to be true, and am so grateful that this powerful woman is now doing HER LIFE’S WORK, thanks in part to one day years and years ago, she and I had lunch and I suggested that she would be great for a project in, you guessed it, Uganda. This ripple had an effect I could never imagined, it also led her to her perfect man who last year became her husband.

Now of course I don’t mean to say that I alone am responsible for this, just that over the course of everyday life, it is so amazing to think of how each and every one of us is so inexorably and beautifully connected. And the magical part is that could be the person next to you in a line-up, a chat with a friend over tea or a smile across a room. We can never fully know the impact we have on others and in turn, ourselves. How beautiful is this? For the first time, I truly understood this. And for the first time, I feel that my life purpose is such a simple yet magnificent, radiant and powerful force – without even thinking about it. Just by being me.

So thank you, Mr. C, for this gift. Damn you for coming into my life again. But thank you for this wisdom that I may not have realized without hitting bottom. It’s only when you hit bottom that you can feel the ground under your feet and decide to push upwards. You can leave now.

Love, light and gratitude,

Sam