Tag: New Year

Cancer, Family, Myself, Preeti

Prayers, Friends and Family

Sanjay Sabarwal
Goodenough, PhD
Image via Wikipedia

 

by Jemal Yarbrough

 

In the fading light of the day, I say a small prayer for my friend’s father who passed away 2 nights ago.  The house is quiet as usual, and she rests uneasily but expectantly for the nausea to follow.  A friend had just visited, the  worry lines creased deep into her forehead due to the recent seizure experienced by her little brother. 2011 seems to be foreboding, and I wonder if more bad news is to come.

But that really is the easy way out.  What is it about a series of bad events that makes us believe that we are unlucky or somehow cursed?  I close my eyes and see my family, and nothing but joy gratitude and loves comes into my soul.  There is not a single relative that I don’t love with all my heart and soul.  It almost seems like heresy to believe that I have the perfect family.  I know my love for them is imperfect because I do not thank God or revel in my blessings of having a truly amazing family enough.  I would daresay that my family is worlds better than the ones I hear about in fictional novels.  I have the ULTIMATE FAMILY, and their wondrous love and prayers are the reason I can sit here clacking away while she struggles with her pain.

Their thoughts and prayers are the reason I know with all my heart and soul that this too shall pass.  That this stupid Cancer is merely a minor bump on the long road of life.  And I pray even harder.  Pray for my blessings, pray that I am at the unfortunate cross roads to hear about friends parents dying, sibling suffering uncalled for pain,  and it makes me ache for my mom and dad who are merely a block away from me physically but always reside in my heart.  I fall in love each time my sisters come over or her brothers do.  Her mom’s pain reverberates in my heart, and I wish I could inhale all their worry and fear.  So I thank God yet again for joining us with them.  For giving us real soldiers so we can mercilessly kill the killer.

And then I come to my friends.  I always thought I had a few good friends, but this recent adventure of ours has introduced me to an amazing soul:Biba, who has selflessly given her time and energy to heal the love of my life.  She made the chemo session seem as just a routine doctor’s visit and I do not think I can ever thank enough.  And then there are others who think they can achieve comfort by merely texting or leaving quick voice mails.  Don’t get me wrong the concern is real but it’s minuscule as if the disease she’s batting is minor or one that can fit in 140 characters or less.   The sad part is that healing her takes nothing more than their physical contact but it’s treated as if  she’s not worth that.  And it hurts.  But we move on because we have to, and we will remember.  They are the past, and the future we have looks brighter due to the shining souls in our life.  The rest of them can take their indifferent asses back to Facebook, Twitter and texts, and become as irrelevant as the social media horse they rode in on.

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Myself

Day of 1/1/11: I am number 1!

Sanjay Sabarwal

 

by Jemal Yarbrough

 

Too many unanswered texts, too few call backs, too much selfishness. I picked the picture to the right because it illustrates to me that there are many who will just continue with their lives not really concerned about friends or family.   I can’t but help be fascinated at the raw emotions I feel as those who I considered close to me once have left me to languish in the toughest battle of my life.  Others have surprised me at their tenderness and care and still other’s I cannot fathom their immaturity.  The reality is that friends come and go, family does the best it can, but only I can make the life I need to live.

So today, I celebrate letting go.  The 1’s being of particular important because at the end of the day I only have myself to rely on.  I no longer want to be dominated by disappointment, hurt or worse, Anger.  No longer will I give lip service to the ideal of being here NOW.  No longer will I dread cancer, chemotherapy, radiation or any of the myriads of  side effects we will face because the reality is we can either be overwhelmed by it or live day-to-day.

Moreover, I cannot expect people to be the way I want them to be.  They are going to be only true to their own nature and while some pay lip service to the ideals of great friendship or family, I just have to take it with a grain of salt.  I want today to be the only day I vent these sentiments because in the past 2 months alone, I know who my real friends and family are.  The rest just acquaintances who once provided fond memories and now just need to be relegated to old photo albums as reminders of a great past.  Some need to be removed completely, others left at a distance, and a few to be politely fake too because it matters to her so much.  So to some I say hello and to others Goodbye, it was nice while it lasted and thanks for the memories.

So 1/1/11 help me today to let go of the past, not worry about the future and just revel in the present.  That’s my gift to myself.

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Myself

2010

Sanjay Sabarwal
Description unavailable
Image by gynti_46 via Flickr

You weren’t a good friend, come to think of it you weren’t much of anything except a source of constant grief.  I am not sorry to see you go, in fact I would say I am glad but I am not going to even dignify that sentiment in relation to you.  But then I realize I have something you cannot take away which are my friends, my family and best of all my brand new wife, Preeti so perhaps I can begrudge you a bit of a farewell.  Except today is just another day, and that’s how I plan to spend it.  No parties, no celebrations just a night in with my beautiful Preeti, just the 2 of us lying next to each other, savoring the closeness and the love of all the ones dear to us in memory.

You weren’t easy to deal with.  From taking a dear family member, giving me a stroke to afflicting the love of my life with a life changing disease, I can definitely say you have made it a mission to be memorable except you are not.  I am not going to give you that power.  Instead, you get this tiny post almost 2 hours before you die in my memory.  You don’t exist, and if you plan to tell your friend 2011 to do the same, then it will get the same middle finger.

I am not bitter.  I am not angry.  I am just done.  I know what I have in my life, and guess what, I know I am rich in that.  Forget money, forget fame, forget the material things or the many meaningless promises I have made at other New Year Eve’s.  I have what I need and want.  Now all that’s left is for the rest of the year to recognize that they have  been reduced to numerical symbols, meaning nothing except for the passage of time.  If you thought you were going to beat me down, 2010, you were mistaken.

Hear me out 2011, you might want to stay on your best behavior before you, too become another torn out calendar.  You have been warned.

Also, 2010, FUCK YOU.

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