GODSTUFF:

MIRACULOUS NEWS — BUT A SPIRITUAL LIMP

Here are two things a person who is in distress — hurting, mourning, feeling his or her worst — does not want to hear:
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”

In the last few weeks, as I’ve been hurting, mourning and feeling my very worst, I’ve heard both of those familiar sayings. More than once.

And each time, I wanted to turn to the well-meaning, kind soul saying them by way of trying to console me and scream, “SHUT THE HELL UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”

But I did not. I said, “I know,” and, “Thank you,” and tried to keep my rage to myself.

However, the funny thing about rage is that you can’t keep it to yourself any more than you can keep joy or the flu to yourself. It leaks out, contaminating the atmosphere around you.

For those I’ve infected and affected with my horrible, brooding moods, I’m sorry.

And to those who have graciously tried to console me by telling me that that which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger and everything happens for a reason, I know, thank you, and . . . you’re right.

It has been a rough few months for me and my family. First hearing that my father might have Parkinson’s disease, and then learning that my mother had breast cancer. Then watching the terrifying unknown unfold as a date was set for her surgery and she was wheeled away from us in the pre-op room to the surgical theater where she’d have both breasts removed. Then waiting for hours in the family lounge for word of how she was doing, and later walking into the post-op room to see her lying there pale and fragile with tubes coming out and an oxygen mask on, leaning in close to hear her first words as she came out of the fog of general anesthesia:
“Praise God.”

Her words. Not mine. I’m still trying to get there and hopefully, sooner than later, I will.

The news from Mom’s doctors has been all good. Marvelously, miraculously great, really. While it turned out she had three kinds of breast cancer in one breast and one in the other, with the double mastectomy, her surgeons got rid of it all.

None of her lymph nodes was cancerous. She won’t have to endure radiation or chemotherapy, and instead simply will take a hormone-suppressing pill for the next five years. Additionally, her breast reconstruction is going well — with the spacers her plastic surgeon installed right after the mastectomies, Mom even has cleavage for the first time.

And she hasn’t had any pain. Seriously. None. She hasn’t even taken a Tylenol for the last week, and the bottle of Percocet her doctor prescribed to keep her comfortable in her first post-surgery days sits on her dresser, unopened. To look at her — and you can see from the picture that I’m not exaggerating — you’d never know she had anything more taxing than a manicure done.

Amazing, everyone says. Miraculous, Mom says, and an answer to her prayers and those of thousands of friends and strangers around the world who have prayed and continue to pray for her, and for her daughter.

So why, then, with all of this great news about Mom, do I feel so thoroughly lousy?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful, so grateful, to her doctors, particularly her surgeon, Dr. Ahmad Fotovat of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport, Conn., the man who quite literally saved her life, and to all the kind people who have written to us reminding us that their thoughts and prayers were with us, and, more importantly, that God was walking with us through these terrifying times.

It’s just that I seem to have come out of this ordeal with a pronounced limp, spiritually speaking. And I’m not sure why.

Not only has my mother come through with physical and spiritual flying colors, in sharing her story with Sun-Times readers, a lot of good — audacious grace that I never could have expected — has come out of it for others. The Kalicky family, for instance.

I met them just before Thanksgiving, after Tom Kalicky wrote me an e-mail encouraging me not to lose faith in the face of my mother’s illness and other family tragedies by telling me what was going on with his family. His wife, Kim, is fighting cancer and has been for several years. A paramedic for the Chicago Fire Department, Tom just recently got back on the job after being out of work for about two years with a back injury. The Kalickys — who, with their four kids and grandpa living in the basement, are a family of seven — are facing bankruptcy. Kim’s car was repossessed four days before Thanksgiving.

But they still had each other, and their faith, and God and their joy, Tom Kalicky told me.

And, since sharing their story in this column a few weeks back, the Kalickys have been buoyed spiritually, physically and financially by the kindness of strangers who have sent checks —some small, some huge — offered cars, food and even a scholarship for their teenage daughter. Blessings in abundance and more answers to prayer.
And still, even having witnessed all of this and more, I’m limping along, like a wounded bear with a thorn in my paw.

Everything happens for a reason, and that which doesn’t kill me will make me stronger. Right. Maybe I’ll be able to run a marathon once this limp heals. Maybe.

Or maybe I’ll keep limping.

A pastor friend of mine, Rob, wrote me recently, addressing the issue of this whole limping, querulous, bearlike quality I seem to have acquired of late.

Rob reminded me of what the word “Eucharist” — the good gift— is really all about.

“God’s gift to us. Our gratitude. The Eucharist is where the body is broken and the blood is spilled, Jesus on the cross.”

Yeah. That much I remember from CCD. What followed in his note set me back on my (bruised) heels.

“And so we’re a Eucharist for the world — we break ourselves open and pour ourselves out so that others may be fed. No wonder we’re tired, deep-in-the-soul tired, sometimes. When someone has been fed, someone else had to have been broken and spilled — that’s how it works,” Rob said.

“You and I break and spill with words and ink, others are broken and poured out in other ways. So there have to be these times when we let what’s been broken be put back together and what’s been spilled be poured back in,” he said, “Cuz that’s how we roll.”

Roll. Limp. Same difference.

For some reason unknown to me but, I believe, known to my Maker, I’m limping. I suppose I may not ever understand why that is.

But I am sure of one thing: When whatever is ailing me has healed, I’ll be stronger.

© Copyright 2006 Sun-Times News Group