With the topic of depression and the suicide of Robin Williams being talked about recently, I decided to post a piece I have written months ago - the night before my mom's final round of chemo. I didn't want to post this because it felt raw and unedited and jagged, but I then I began to wonder if maybe some people might resonate with this fact: healing hurts. It hurts indeed.
I look at my mom and she’s about to go to chemo and the poison will soon be injected through an IV, just like it is every other week, and she’ll come home and writhe in agony, and her back and her bones and her joints and her heart will ache and this healing hurts.
I look at my friend, and he’s recently started taking the anti-depressants the woman prescribed to him, but he doesn’t want to because it makes him feel like a failure and a quitter and someone who gives up instead of pressing on, but the suicidal thoughts that scream at him feel too much sometimes, and this healing hurts.
I look at myself and I’m angry and bitter and disappointed, and I’m lying in my bed late in the night, and tears are soaking through my pillows, through my sheets and down my cheeks, and I know my eyes will be puffy and swollen in the morning, and this healing hurts.
To me, healing always sounded like this beautiful, restorative, restful thought.
But for me, healing sometimes hurts. And not just a little. It hurts a lot.
It hurts so much, actually. I sit there, weeping, asking Jesus to hold me, because somedays I just need to be held. And the healing hurts. The healing hurts. It’s stretching and prodding and gaping me wide open, and I feel loose and flimsy and like the whole world can peer in and see this churning soul of mine.
Tears stream until I sleep. I think Jesus was holding me extra tight.
I wake up the next day.
And I breathe in.
And I am healing.
And yes, she’ll go to chemo on Friday, for that final final round, and her body will ache and scream and moan and rage.
And she is healing.
And yes, he’ll continue to take the pills, even though they sometimes make him sadder than he felt before, but he’ll still take those two little capsules every day, at the exact same time.
And he is healing.
And yes, my eyes are puffy and red and swollen and somehow even smaller than they usually are.
And I am healing.
And it hurts.
But?
We are healing.
