You CAN Take It With You

1. I was not having a good life. I had cancer, I had lost my brother, and my fiance had left me and gone off with a 19 year old. Depression reared its loveless head and teamed up with brother Gravity, pinning me to the floorboards. They jeered and they challenged me to give up and call it quits. This time there was no Mum to stop them bullying me either. They forced me to reach deep within myself and find some kind of spiritual black belt maneuver that would send them sprawling across the room, dizzy, winded and unable to catch me while I made good my escape. Without that, I didn't stand much of a chance of hanging around on this planet with the rest of you for much longer.

Thus began my earnest search for a truth. A happiness. A POINT to all this getting up, eating food, going to work, watching TV, and going back to bed again. This missive is about my journey from the darkness into the light; my testimony to some of the astonishing, noble and joyful treasures I found when I simply had no other choice. I intend to pay homage to philosophy, Judaism, Advaita, humour, music, football and even the crazy $4000 self-help courses one can be sold when one is feeling vulnerable enough.

John Bradshaw once wrote, "Pain is the great teacher, with whom no one can argue." It's true, Pain has been my Great Guru. Even a kid knows that if your hand hurts badly enough, you're going to drop whatever toy you've been clutching on to so fervently, no matter what.

So stay with me, people. 'Cause this is no Snow White fairy story; this is Pulp Fiction meets the Old Testament, with a kick arse sound track from the sixties and seventies, when music was still good. The scenery covers vast areas of the globe - from the holy places of South India and Israel, through France, Ireland, the United States and the East Coast of Australia, to the dread smog of Bangkok's endless seedy streets.

For now, I'm going to read a book. I'll come back later, and maybe, by the Grace of my Higher Power, I just might write one.

There is an old phrase; "The melancholy of things completed." I'd have thought that finishing up all my cancer treatments after seven years, I would be ecstatic about beginning a new chapter of life, having been blessed with a new chance at life when so many others haven't.

Strangely, though, while I was fighting for my life, I had a purpose, as horrible as it was, and it kept me focussed. Suddenly now, my life was like Ground Zero in New York - an empty space where something used to stand. Where to start, what to do? It's interesting to note that even after ten years, people don't know what to build at Ground Zero.

I noticed I was putting a pressure on myself, to fix things up, to do something important and not to waste time. But my values had changed completely. It's not possible to come face to face with mortality and fail to see the ultimate futility of all actions.

One day I was extremely low. I rarely allowed myself to feel down, because I was so grateful to be able to live on for a while longer. But on this day I could barely move. The fight was over and now I was only conscious of the bruises and broken bones.

Towards evening, I found a way to feel better. I pretended I had amnesia; I rid my mind of all thoughts of the past. I looked at everything around me as if I were someone from another planet. It was a very interesting experiment as I found myself looking at the sky with wonder, and at flowers with real interest, thinking "What are these things for?"

I saw that all the beauty around me was there simply to enjoy.

It was a revelation. There was no stress or strain in what I was seeing - creation was displaying its vast beauty for no other reason than because it CAN. Looking at life this way, the suffering fell away, and I felt like a small child again, wide eyed and curious about everything. I thought, "Zen Buddhists must aim at this kind of state."

I decided to practise remaining in this NOW state. Leave the past out of my life. As Jesus put it, "Let the dead bury the dead." It became obvious that it was my thoughts that were causing me great suffering, and my option was to take no notice of them. I could just let the thoughts vanish back to wherever they came from.

This recovery thing is a roller coaster, for sure.

As Forrest Gump so succinctly puts it; "Larf is lark a box of choklits - ya nevah know whatcha gonna git."

When you go for chemo, it's like going to the electric chair. They strap you in and hook you up, and then it begins.

Bag after bag of liquids with names too long to pronounce get hung up in the IV drip holder. Then the chemicals start slowly dripping into your veins. They give you an anti-vomiting drug called Zofran to begin with, which has the side-effect of making you love everybody.

Then they apply the chemo.

You sit there for five hours, as the chemicals drip in. You have to wear boxing gloves full of ice on certain chemo days, to stop the chemical getting into your fingertips where it can lodge forever, unless your fingers are frozen.

There are about a dozen other people in the chemo room; six chairs on each side facing each other. You notice that every other person there is at least 30 years older than you. You look around for someone as young as yourself.

On the way home, courtesy of Zofran, you love everyone and you think, "That wasnt so bad. In fact, I'm going to ring my friends and tell them how much they all mean to me."

You get home and after a few hours the Zofran wears off. You vomit your entire innards out, and lie back in bed, feeling for the first time in your life like you've been beaten, tortured and run over by a B-double truck, and yet somehow still managed to live.

You have no idea that some day this will all seem like a walk in the park. Some day when you've found out what the rest of the treatment is like. But for now you wait for your hair to fall out and your fertility to die.

And you pray.