Tag Archives: Ryan’s mind

Can’t Help But Hope

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If you live in Vancouver you’ve dealt with disappointment. In the last week we saw our first snowfall of the winter come in all of its glory. It was beautiful, it was exciting, schools closed, the roads were covered…and the rain washed it away before a child could even really play in it. It was disappointing.

I’m realizing that disappointment is something that I spend much of my life avoiding. Disappointment hurts. I don’t want to look foolish by hoping for something that I’ll only eventually be let down by. Hope hurts. Hope causes you to raise your expectations, it creates vulnerability, it puts you in a place where you can be sorely hurt and let down. If you don’t hope for something you won’t get disappointed if it doesn’t happen. If you don’t hope for something you’ve placed yourself in a protected position, hedged against hurt, against potential shame, against embarrassment.

I’ve spent much of my life avoiding disappointment…but I think I’m ready to be hurt by hope. I think I’m ready to be disappointed by hope. I think it’s worth it. And I dont’ think I could have come to this place genuinely without the process that took me here.* In my first seven months fighting cancer my faith journey had to take me to a place where death was acceptable. And it still is. Death is unavoidable, death is nothing to be feared because death has been overcome (thanks for that JC), death has no permanent hold on me. I HAD to come to a place where there was hope even in death (not just despite death but even IN death). I had to believe that God could and would tell a story through my life, my sickness, and my death. But God did not is not leaving me there. God is inviting me to risk being disappointed by hoping for healing. Most people jumped straight to this place, their first (and only) prayer was for healing, their only expectation was that God would heal me. But I couldn’t make that jump both because I don’t fully believe it and because I couldn’t fully believe it until I was willing to see God in healing and death.

Today, and for about the last month, I’m ready to hope to be healed. I’m expecting to be healed. I’m planning to be healed. I might be wrong, I may be sorely disappointed, I may get hurt…but that’s the nature of hope isn’t it? Hope hurts. Or in the words of Foy Vance “hope deals the hardest blow, yet I cannot help myself but hope”

* That’s a bit of a redundant sentence…a bit goofy, though I’ll defend it’s truthiness to the end…and, yes, I did just say ‘truthiness’

Two Faced–Who Am I?

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I feel like I’m lying sometimes. I feel somewhat two-faced. Or maybe a more appropriate way to capture it is that I feel like I’m living a double life. I’m living two different lives and I’m not sure which one is the real one, which one is the real Ryan. Who am I?

Healthy Ryan

Healthy Ryan does the dishes first thing in the morning while he’s making his family breakfast. Healthy Ryan goes on dates with his wife (ok, not as often as he should or would like to). Healthy Ryan goes to the neighborhood coffee shop and talks to people. Healthy Ryan is initiating a new movement in downtown Vancouver called the Grassroots Conspiracy. Healthy Ryan likes to read and learn. Healthy Ryan likes to hang out with people, have people over in the evening, and play legos with his son. Healthy Ryan reads books to his kids before bedtime. Healthy Ryan laughs at his wife’s jokes a lot (’cause she’s pretty funny). Healthy Ryan likes to laugh. Healthy Ryan is involved in his neighborhood, he’s an active participant in the life of the neighborhood. Healthy Ryan has negative atributes too (some pretty bad ones too) but if you compare him to sick Ryan he looks real good.

Sick Ryan

Sick Ryan is pretty boring. Sick Ryan just lays around doing nothing. He may watch movies, a few episodes of Law and Order, but sick Ryan doesn’t really read or learn anything. Sick Ryan sleeps a lot. He goes to bed early and takes naps throughout the day. Sick Ryan doesn’t really leave the house nor does he have people over. He’s kind of antisocial and reclusive. Sick Ryan isn’t involved in much ’cause he’s usually too sick to do anything. Sick Ryan doesn’t help much with parenting nor does he do much to care for his wife. Sick Ryan just sucks energy from those around him.

Which Am I?

Am I sick Ryan or am I healthy Ryan? I know (duh) that I’m both. I know that. I realize that. Clearly. BUT there is such an strong dichotomy between the two Ryan’s that at times it becomes hard to reconcile. They are absolute oposites and they can swing from one to the other in a moments notice. I never know who I will be from day to day, I can never plan a week ahead, I can never count on which Ryan will apear. My kids don’t know if they’re getting sick daddy or healthy daddy, my wife doesn’t know if she’s getting the present or the absent husband, I don’t know if I can spend time with people or must hide out. I’m dying to know which more defines me! I’m dying to know which one I am more of, which one will dominate my existence! Who am I?

Who Are You?

I can only write from my own experience, but I know that this is true of you too. It may not always be as clear and obvious as it is in my life but you know that at times most of us struggle with deciding which person we are. Are you the dude that’s the life of the party or the guy that secretly questions whether he belongs? Are you the lady who everyone things is gorgeous or the one who questions whether she stacks up to others? Are you the guy who passionately loves his wife or the guy who secretly finds his passions fulfilled in pornography? Are you the spiritual contemplative person or the person that can’t exist without the noise of a radio or tv? We’ve got our varied identities that create two us’s–two people that shouldn’t exist in unity…and yet here we find ourselves. We exist and we drive me crazy.

The Best Option…

Maybe our best option is to give up. Maybe our best option is to throw our hands up in the air and resolutely declare: This is me, I am us, I might make no sense to myself but I am me. Sick Ryan and Healthy Ryan don’t mesh very well but they’re both Ryan. Sick Ryan kind of sucks…but he is a part of me. As I seek to understand what integration of my multiple selves looks like my life moving forward my hope is not just for Sick Ryan to go away (while I do hope for this my hope cannot be solely in it) but for Healthy Ryan and Sick Ryan to learn from each other and believe that both are of value. The problem is that I get caught up in the economy of it all: Sick Ryan doesn’t seem to have anything to offer while Healthy Ryan has much to give. Worth, therefore, is found not in identity but in commerce (what a crock!). Worth (I want to believe) is found in who I am (healthy or sick) and in who I am loved by (by God for certain by humanity I hope). As I learn to live into this reality (that my identity is found not in what I offer the world but in who I am created to be) I believe that the integration of my two worlds will become a more safe venture. How ’bout you?

Amulets and Charms

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I’m not a superstitious guy whatsoever. I’ve never had a lucky pair of socks, I’ve never had  a lucky number, I’ve never avoided a black cat. I see the world to practically to be much in to superstitions and I’m probably too laid back to spend much time thinking about them anyway!

But if you looked in my pocket these days, if you glanced around my bedroom, or rifled through my closet you might think otherwise…and maybe for good reason.

Every day I put two things in my pocket:

  • A coin that my sister-in-law purchased for me at the Grotto from the patron saint of cancer patients, Saint Perigrine. The coin says that cancer “Cannot defeat the soul, cannot shatter hope, cannot depress faith, cannot destroy homes, cannot limit humanity, cannot kill friendships, cannot silence courage, cannot ruin the soul, cannot reduce the spirit, CAN be overcome…” I’m not Catholic nor do I pray to saints but I do value what it represents. It represents hope, it represents God’s power to heal, and it was a gift from someone I love. As I walk around with my hand in my pocket I usually flip that coin round and round between my fingers and am reminded that cancer CAN be overcome. I love what that coin represents. I need to be reminded of that.
  • A shard of kyanite stone. To be perfectly honest I grew up believing that crystals were evil, that they somehow represented a satanic power or something. A word like “energy” would have never been used with regard to healing (nor did we speak of ‘holistic healing’ of any kind). Today I find myself fascinated by the mystery of how God has fashioned our bodies into being, how much depth there is beyond the tangibly physical and how much reality there is to our ‘energy’ as individuals and as a community. Anyway, a friend suggested that I carry around this stone, that it aids in bringing energy balance and healing. Honestly I don’t know if that’s true or not. It would make sense to me that like food provides healing for the body, or like how animals often provide comfort for the emotions, other parts of God’s creation would also bring with them additional properties of value. Regardless I carry around this stone in my pocket not because I think it’ll do a magic trick in my pocket but because it reminds me that God CAN bring about healing and he HAS created a world that was intended to function a certain way that nurtures health and vitality. Granted I am a constant reminder of how broken God’s intended reality has become…but as I rub that stone in my pocket I am reminded not of my brokenness but of God’s ability to bring about healing. I like that. I need that. I want that.

If you looked around my room or closet you’d stumble across a few things too:

  • Draped across the chair in our room is a prayer shawl made for my wife by my aunts and my grandma. Hand knit by a group of loving women, anointed with symbolic frankincense oil, and given to us with a special prayer it represents not only the love of my family but the hope found in prayer.
  • On Jess’ side of the bed lays an extra blanket (I get too hot for it to be on my side!) that was quilted by dozens of hands from my sister’s church up in Federal Way, Washington. Hand stitched and prayed over by that community, the quilt was finished only once they added dozens of cream colored loops which represents all those fighting central nervous system cancer along with me. This blanket reminds me of those who are praying with and for me from both far and near–strangers and loved ones.
  • A box sits in the top of my closet and is filled cards, notes, drawings, and gifts from all of you. Most of them are from when I was in the hospital, though not all. I’ve kept virtually every note sent to me during the last eight months and I hold onto them as precious commodities. It’s clear what that box represents–you. Your love, your care, your concern.
  • (I forgot this all-too-important bullet point in my first draft!) An old case for glasses sits next to my bed stuffed full of origami cranes. One night when my children were being babysat they worked with their babysitter in an effort to fold 1000 cranes for me. I think they maxed out a little closer to ten. But after making the cranes both India and Jones quietly whispered a prayer onto each crane before putting it in the case. During my radiation treatments I always carried a different colored crane with me to the clinic. I love those little cranes, I love what they represent, I love that my children covered them in prayer, I love that my children never told me what their prayers were, I love that my children are praying for me.

This week I’m going to get my ears pierced and start slowly gauging them. I don’t know if I’ll look particularly well with my ears done and I’ve always thought it might come off a little goofy on me. But I feel like it’s something I need to do. It’s symbolic. Like everything else above it represents something beyond its tangible reality. Everything in my life is about fighting cancer, about maintaining energy, about restoring normalcy (or something that we dare to consider normal) and everything in my life is temporary. We can’t plan far out ahead, we can’t commit to much in life because we don’t know what the next day, week, or month will bring. So by gauging my ears I am telling myself that I can do something that has no other purpose that to be fun in and of itself. I am telling myself that I can do something that requires longevity (gauging your ears is a long process). I am telling myself that my life is more than just fighting cancer. It’s symbolic.

Coins, stones, cards, blankets, jewelry…they’re all inherently worthless…but they represent a reality. A reality that I want to more fully live into. A reality that I want to continuously be aware of. A reality that doesn’t often seem very…well…real. That I can get better. That I will get better. That people do care. That prayer does make a difference. That there is more than the last eight months.

Greatness

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Is greatness worth it? It seems to me that in order to do things that will be remembered after you die, in order to be the kind of person that changes the world you’ve got to give up a lot. And I’m just not sure it’s worth it. Martin Luther King Jr. had many affairs. Gandhi watched his wife die rather than violate her body with a simple shot that would save her. Steve Jobs was eccentric and odd in extreme ways. High level pastors often make the news for their secret lives that include soliciting prostitutes, affairs, and addiction. It really seems like the people who accomplish great things inevitably sacrifice much.

Most of us want to be remembered for something good or great that we’ve done. Most of us want our eulogy to be an inspiring story of greatness. But is it worth the cost?

Is it enough for my eulogy to say that I tried to be a good father, a good husband, and a follower of Jesus? Am I satisfied with being faithful in ordinary things rather than excelling in the extraordinary?

My Wife Just Can't Understand

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My wife just can’t understand what it’s like to go through what I’m going through. She can’t understand what it’s like to have all the extra hormones that I had to deal with while I was hopped up on steroids for six months. Crying at a moments notice, being moody, irrational, and generally having a different emotional disposition are all things that she just can’t understand.

Try as she may my beautiful wife who is chronically thin has no idea what its like to pour on thirty pounds in just a few months. Even worse, knowing that the extra pounds are not permanent keeps one from justifying purchasing more clothes to cover the new girth. She just absolutely doesn’t get it! She can’t imagine how awkward it is to need to use a rubber band to hold my pants together ’cause the button won’t reach the buttonhole.

She’s never had something foreign growing inside her, sucking her life’s energy and strength to feed its own growth. It’s as if I have a parasite living in my back…but its not a parasite, it’s a tumor. There’s no way she can comprehend the loss of control one feels with something like that being inside of you, one with you, and yet completely foreign. She just can’t get it.

Jess doesn’t know what its like to be nauseous day in and out, for food to not sound good for months at a time, and to be stuck on your back all day every day. She doesn’t understand how boring it is to be on bed rest, to not feel good enough to read, and yet to realize that there truly isn’t anything good to watch on TV. Nope, she doesn’t get it.

I keenly remember when I was at the hospital the transition that happened as I lost any need for privacy. So many doctors and nurses had looked at my body, poked and prodded it, that I lost any sense that there was anything to hide. Jess can’t understand that. She can’t understand what its like to be exposed so many times and so regularly that you forget you might have anything to be ashamed of.

Jess can’t understand how taxing it is to have to go to the doctor all the time, to feel like you’ve got a chain connecting you with your doctor ’cause you aint ever going to get to far from ’em. No way, no how she understands that frustration.

Speaking of frustration!!! She has absolutely no way to understand how annoying it is to have to pee constantly! I swear I’m like an eighty year old man (my apologies to any eighty year old men I just offended)! I pee every five minutes…and there’s no way my wife gets that. She can’t understand what that’s like for sure. And it’s not just pee either, no way she understands what severe constipation feels like. It is a miserable feeling that she just can’t sympathize with.

Thank God I got a vasectomy last year.