Forgetting

There’s so much one can learn through cancer, or any illness really. I mostly learned to get my spiritual ducks in a row (even though they keep getting out of line, those crazy ducks) and to appreciate and be grateful for every day. As I’ve written before, that, at times, has been overwhelming. I’ve been completely immersed in wonder and just on the edge of functioning. Often having to force myself back.  These are lessons or teachings that can really change your life, in a good way, and of course, I want to hold on to them. 

Last summer, just before I relapsed, I was saying to myself, “you’re starting to forget…” I noticed myself doing things I thought I had stopped doing. Like compare and despair stuff or hating my fat baby belly that I still had five years after birth.  I truly dislike those types of thoughts. They are a useless waste of time. I know we’re all plagued with them but I thought I had really turned the volume down on them, and then, BAM!, they were back, dialed up and blaring.

But, then I relapsed!  What a horrible way to get back in touch with what’s important in life. So once again I will attempt, as I go through and recover from treatment again, to maintain that pureness in some way.  

This time around somehow I don’t mind sitting and meditating.  I always pretty much hated it. Being left with my own brain to defend myself. Yikes. But now, I just listen to my breath and the birds outside and I love it.  So that’s good.  Allison told me that Orthodox Jews say a prayer of gratitude for virtually every action they take during their day, including things like having the ability to open their eyes in the morning or the ability to hear the birds in the trees.  They pend their days not forgetting.

When I did my advanced yoga training in New York, Swami Asokananda told a story I’ve never forgotten. It was about his three-year-old nephew.  The parents had just had another baby and his nephew kept begging to be alone with the baby.  And the parents kept asking why. He just kept saying he wanted to talk with the baby! So let him have some time alone with the baby, and of course, listened through the monitor in the room.  They were very surprised to hear that their oldest had a question for the newborn.  He asked the baby, “Can you remind what God is like? I’m beginning to forget”.  Gives me chills every time.