Friday, April 07, 2006

April 2006 Christine's Corner

This month's edition was both a struggle and very freeing to write. March was a difficult month for me, and often, when I'm trying to process things or sort things through, I write. We all find ways in life to express ourselves, to sort out the melange of emotions and thoughts that swirl around in our minds and bodies as we go through our lives. I happen to write.

As many of you know from visiting CoSozo, one of my loved ones has been battling pancreatic cancer for an incredibly long time. Many pancreatic cancer patients, unless they are candidates for the Whipple procedure, die within 3-6 months of diagnosis. Sharon, who in my heart felt like a sister to me, was diagnosed in August of 2004 and fought to stay with us until she died on March 1, 2006. The experience of loving and caring for Sharon while she battled her illness and fought to survive took her loved ones on a journey of hope and immeasurable fear. We watched with a mixture of awe and despair as she showed us what courage looks like while the disease worked its way through her body.

For me, I have always viewed life as a kind of school that we enroll in to learn the things that we need to learn in our souls, and I have always viewed dying as going home. Even though I really do have a magnificent vision of what I imagine it is like when we leave her and go to that other space or way of being, I must admit, I don't find that it eases my grief any. I've always found that curious, how strongly I believe that we exist in another way after we die and how much better I believe it is there than here, and yet feel so sad at the loss of actually having the person who has passed here physically to see and touch.

With Sharon, my own journey toward greater learning in life was amazing. I learned things from her as a result of our conversations, from accompanying her on her journey, that I had never known or felt before. I was blessed by so many gifts that Sharon gave to me by her presence and through her words, and although today those memories are tinged with sadness, those gifts brought a light into my life that outshines the sorrow I feel in my heart.

Sharon was a survivor, a fighter who fought her way back from the edge three times. She helped us all to come together, to understand life and loving more fully and completely, which were rewarding, even while painful experiences to share. Loving her before her diagnosis, during her battle with the cancer, as well as when she began to end her journey in life and begin another experience was an honor and a profound blessing my life. Ultimately, I am certain that there are no words that I could ever say to the world that would enable me to relay the impact she had on the lives of those who loved her.

To those of you who have written to send your prayers and wishes of healing for Sharon, please know how much those were appreciated. The outpouring of love and support for Sharon's family was simply incredible. I am continuously amazed by the capacity of human beings to extend themselves in love and support of another who is struggling, and I am honored to have so many of those people visiting this site. At some point in the future, the spirituality page will be updated but for obvious reasons, I'm just not ready to do that yet, and I need some time to process how best to revise it to best honor Sharon and those of you who benefit from the information about prayer.

While grief is no stranger to me in my life, for I have lost loved ones before, it has been some time since I've felt a loss like this. So, I write, and I pray that all of you who are either battling your own life-threatening or serious diseases and all of you who love someone who is seriously ill, are helped by this issue.

I know there are so many of you who are either also battling your own life-threatening or serious illness or who love and care for those who are ill. I also know that my grief with my own loss is not unique or special in any way other than it is my own to experience and process. It is somehow comforting to me to know that I am not alone in my process. Not surprisingly, I've written an article this month about grief, which I had been planning on writing in the future, but which seemed appropriate for this month. I am not a grief counselor, nor a licensed therapist, I simply write from my own personal experiences in life and hope that my words are helpful for anyone else who is or has experienced grief in their own lives.

I've spoken about where I am personally, and I'd also like to address the professional - CoSozo. Originally, when we launched last October, we announced that we would require membership for portions of the CoSozo site after the April issue. However, as we have approached April, we have determined that we will retain the current structure of the site until later in the year. There are a lot of things that have happened so far in 2006 that make it more beneficial for us to keep the issues open for now and we are very much looking forward to enabling all visitors access to the full site until a later date. We have a lot of great things lining up that will enable us to broaden our audience even further. We very much look forward to welcoming you, our existing readers, as well as our new readers to the site. So enjoy the site!

~posted by Christine, 4:33 PM