Thankful For Loss

1.

Don't touch me too hard. Push me when it's needed, but know your power and control your anger. If you push me too hard I will bleed. Not from falling, but from your fingers being pressed a little too hard against my heart's skin. 

I have known that heart disease comes with limitations, both physical and mental. It goes without saying that every chronic illness brings with it unspoken psychological strain.

I thought of my dad's older brother who looks just like him. That man has suffered from gout for as long as I've known him. I met him when I was 8. I'm in my 40s now. I had my first experience with gout recently. I didn't want to believe it, until physical and chemical tests made it clear. The pain didn't care whether or not I was a believer.

After confirmation, my friend François was my first thought. Then my uncle. Is this what this man had suffered all these years? There's no way that can be considered normal. I lasted a few hours before bringing the hospital roof down. My fortune was that as a heart patient who was experiencing a heart failure flare-up at the time, tending to my needs was important for the nursing staff.

My uncle has no medical aid, no private healthcare. Just meds that do little to ease the pain. The kind of pain that deserves multiple adverbs - excruciatingly, devastatingly, horrifically painful.

Gout doesn't come with overt physical symptoms. It's your cries of pain, a hot big toe and invisible crystals between your joints. I imagine that my uncle feels lonely when he gets an attack. Those around you don't see blood, so they react less and less as time progresses. His wife must be so tired of hearing about it, so he probably bites his upper lip and sleeps through the pain. Crying into the eternal abyss of folded ears.

Only now do I feel real sympathy for him.

Only now can I say to him, 'I understand.' Even that wouldn't be true, as I suffered the pain for less than a day. 

I imagine that this would make him cry as his figurative heart releases psychological pain that has been locked for years. Worse still, as a man, he's not inclined to speaking about his feelings. 

Chronic illness is more than just the technical name and physical manifestation of an ailment. The psychological alteration is an endless pool of unsettled emotions.

Fear.

Resentment. 

Yearn. Yearning for normalcy. 

Loneliness, even when surrounded by love.

2.

I often imagine myself to be a fearless person who can handle difficult conversations. I'm quick to accept my mistakes because fighting is a lot of work. 

If I fight with you and we don't resolve it, I have to make mental notes that we are not on speaking terms. That's much more admin than I'm willing to do. Unpaid work? No thanks. 

So it is with a heavy heart that I accept that there are people, less than five, with whom I will not reach a point of resolution. 

All is lost, except respect. This will always remain.

The best way my heart knows how to deal with this scenario is distance. Long-term distance. This is the only type of running I do in this life. 

Heavier still is the sense of betrayal, perhaps undue because we don't promise each other loyalty as adult friends. As kids, we made all manner of oaths. They usually involved some disgusting ritual that almost always involved spit. But that ritual would be etched into your memory, and the idea of being disloyal would fill you with preliminary guilt.

Adults? It depends what's at stake.

This is sad. 

This won't change. Experience hardens our hearts. 

3.

As we grow older and our bodies start to malfunction, make promises to yourself. Oaths that involve bodily fluids.

Your promises need to create a cosy home for both your figurative and physical heart. Your heart and mind naturally start to synchronise, as you care less and less about others' opinion of you. 

Therefore, with great joy, promise yourself that you will not allow anger to lodge in your heart for long. 

You will start to empty your unpaid tenants room in your mind. 

A person hurts you? They're going through something that isn't your problem. No, don't accept their rubbish. You're not a toilet. But don't let them live rent-free in your mind either. 

Promise.

If you lose something important to you, rebind your heart that grief over material things is a necessary step to healing, but has a tiny place. The baking must start, chop-chop.

A good friend, Anthea Herbet, taught me lessons about loving the same parts of my body that I resent. My heart and lungs. They have gone through difficulty, trying to keep me alive. I have learnt to thank them everyday. Afterall, I'm responsible for my body. 

Lost a limb? Thank the remaining limb. 

Have diabetes? Thank your pancreas for trying. 

Diagnosed with cancer? Thank that part of your body for fighting so hard that you realised that something was wrong, giving doctors a chance to keep you alive.

No matter what has happened to you, there's a part of your body that stood up and showed up for you. Yes, this is oversimplified. It needs to be, for the goal to remain in sight.

Lost a friend? Thank them in your heart, for freeing you of any future anxiety that friendship may have brought you. Not scornfully. Genuinely. 

Thank your heart and mind for practically everything. 

Your physical heart for keeping your body oxygenated and your physical brain for keeping you functional. 

You are worth every bit of peace. I am worth every bit of peace. Say it in front of the mirror.