I am not sure exactly why, but it seems that today I have received quite a few messages from family, friends and colleagues telling me that they have been praying for me or attending church. Everyone believes in the power or prayer and positive thinking. What this shows is that people value me and are doing what they can to help assist me in their own way. Social support is one of the strongest predictors of survival across illness. I see it as a kind gesture from people that I greatly appreciate. While I do work I normally have YouTube shorts playing as background noise and some of the content is rage bait or just annoyances from different people’s perspectives. This morning someone said something that triggered my attention. They had said you need to look for someone that is kind, not nice. Nice protects comfort, avoids conflict, preserves social smoothness, reduces tension. When you are nice you may withhold difficulty situations to avoid the peace. When you are kind you aim to serve long-term good and you do what helps. Being kind you will act with courage and care simultaneously and sometimes it can be uncomfortable. The difference is when you are nice you may ask, “Will they like this?” and being kind the reflection is, “is this right and helpful?” So why did this resonate with me this morning. Melanie is kind to me, she is not “nice.” She will call me out when I am foolish, as my friends. They do not try to protect me by being nice. If I do something stupid like eat too much, they will tell me the harsh truth that I should not have pushed myself. That is kindness, there is no sugar coating of the issue and when they tell me to stop something it is with positive intent. I have had people mention that they admire my strength and positivity in this. I appreciate that the people that I surround myself with do not try and protect me by trying to soften reality. The situation sucks, but we do not need to let it define things.
Last night Mel made a comment about some of the music I was listening to. I am not sure why but the song “Right here waiting” by Richard Marx played and it put me in a sentimental mood and made me reflect a bit on my relationship that I have with Mel. It is easy to take for granted all of the little things that someone does for you when it becomes part of the daily routine. There are a couple of songs that make me feel a bit sad when I listen to them and I am not sure why on occasion I am in the mood to have it play. Every day we talk to the kids about how their days were. On Monday Olivier started it off by saying nothing exciting happened and then a bombshell reveal. One of his friends mom died on Friday and his friend was not at school. It was a sudden death and it was shocking as she had dropped him off at our house a week or so prior. We spoke to him about how he felt and told him that if he wanted to go support his friend at the funeral home he could go. He declined and we told him that he needs to support his friend however he can. Olivier mentioned how they brought someone into the school to help out with grief and processing things and I think that is when it Mel and myself a bit harder. No matter how much we deny it, this is something that we may need to deal with at some point. The kids will miss school to deal with the aftermath of my battle with cancer. Right now the goal is to control the cancer for as long as we can, and we can hope that the time is long from now, but what this highlighted was the fragility of everyone’s life. We explained to Olivier that was why it was important to look at things from a positive point of view, because you never know what is going to happen. I think he understood that and ever since his negative tirade this weekend we have been trying to get him to reflect on 3 to 5 positive things in his life daily.
I feel sadness when I listen to some of this songs about love and discussing distances. Early on in our relationship Mel was doing her Masters in Toronto and I was going back and forth. I never realized how hard it was on her, as she was alone in a city and she is very social. When I would visit I would come and we would have a grand old time, but then when I left to come back to Sudbury she was left alone in her apartment. Her aunt and uncle lived a short 1hr jaunt on the other side of town, but it took approximately 90 minutes to get there with public transit. Some of the songs reminded me of the times when I would abandon her in our long distance relationship and the sadness she felt. With the death of someone that Olivier knew it brought it all about. I am older than Mel so we knew that in all likelihood that she would outlive me, as generally women live longer. Men in my family live to either 90+ or die young. Genetically we thought that I would be in good shape, so my mortality is something that I have thought of in the past before in terms of our relationship.
In times like this, relationships fall apart when things get difficult. There is no sugar coating how difficult that this has been on our family. We shield the kids from a lot of it, but it takes a toll on Mel and myself. There are a lot of little things that Mel excels at that I could take for granted. She excels at navigating the healthcare system and advocating for me. Mel has followed up with all of my doctors and pursues all alternative treatments and methods. I am better at research than she is and can find more niche information, but she is the one that points me in the right direction and then I can search it up and relay it back to her. She is the one that will then contact the appropriate people and follow up if they take too long. There are so many little things that she will do, such as make sure that I have all sorts of treats by my bed. She gets mad at me when I push myself too much and help out around the house. That is her being kind, not nice. She does not sugarcoat it and tell me allow me to help. She berates me for being an foolish and pushing too hard.
When I mention things in my blog people take some of it as guidance on how they can help us out. My mother in law purchases things from the Ukrainian church for us to eat and will be bringing it this weekend. Last weekend I had a craving for a pizza that was overly salty and I figure that it would just be me eating it. Boy did that not work out as Mel and Xavier ate some of it. Xavier ended up taking it to school for lunch. I do not mind as it would have taken me at least a week to finish it and we would have frozen it. I can only eat one slice at a time but I did not think that they would have liked my pizza. If we had higher end anchovies at the pizza places I would probably get that on it as well. Mel thinks the pizza is too salty. I got shredded pepperoni, bacon, green olives, feta cheese and extra cheese on an ultra thin pizza well done. I was hoping it would be crispier but alas it was not. For some reason Toppers is one of the only places where I can tolerate to eat their pizza in Sudbury if it is the ultra thin crust. A work colleague who travels to Toronto regularly managed to find me some jelly oranges and brought them back so the kids will be quite ecstatic. I asked my sister for some baklava because we had some disappointing ones in Sudbury and they have some delicious ones in Toronto. I have been in the mood for some desserts lately. Maybe I will make some flan this weekend.
QHM