Reflections Before Going Under the Knife

Today I'm having surgery...to repair my hernias that developed from the splenectomy I had in 2015. Although I will be under general anesthesia and cannot have laparoscopic surgery, everyone assures me it will be easy peasy..no worries.

But I am worried.  It is not logical, but the fear resides in my gut and I know that fear comes from the last time I was in the hospital... when I almost died; when I was in ICU for nine days; when I lost so much brain function.  And THEN..even though I know in my head that the following events of my dad's and brother's deaths and my mother surviving 3 very damaging strokes were not a result of my hospital stay, I am afraid.


When I get afraid or depressed, let me tell you I can wallow in it with the best of 'em.  I can lay awake at night and imagine the worst, but when I can look around me it is my fear and sadness that help me begin to touch the pain and horrors of those who walk through our clinic doors.

From my 2015  trauma and now resulting fear, I can just begin to understand how people live in dread of their own future.    

• Parents afraid to die because who would feed their children? 
• The constant waiting for the other shoe to drop.  
• The guilt and shame of feeling stuck and not able to move and do what needs to be done.
• The feeling of hopelessness.
• The stress...the constant stress of not being able to provide for one's family.
• The physical aches and pains that come from grief, trauma, and poverty.

We, who have what we need, cannot understand what it is like to not have what one needs to prevent suffering.  And because we cannot understand,  we minimize the pain and suffering of others.

There is another way though...we could end the suffering over which we have control.  

There need not be any person on this earth who lives in poverty.  Our world has plenty, we just have to share. 

There need not be any person on this earth who lives with war.  We as humans can learn to negotiate and put our resources to peace not weapons.

There need not be any person on this earth who lives the results of others  raping this planet. We as humans are brilliant and can work for different solutions to the crisis of climate change.

In today's time, many of us think that we as the human race are racing backwards in time, but we must not resign ourselves to that fate of destruction, hate, and death.

I will not choose that fate, instead  I choose to end suffering; I choose life; I choose love.

What will you choose?

-Kathleen

photo by Greg Ewart