My Cross to Bear

I meant to include this next little bit in my last post but I forgot (hey, I'm in my late 50's; call it my "senior moment"- OK, so there are a lot of them). I've been thinking lately that having this disease is my "cross to bear". I really haven't had one all my life so far, but it seems that everyone has one eventually. And like everyone's purpose in life, everyone's cross is different as well. Oh, I suppose I thought my cross was losing my job in the 90's but we recovered well enough from that, though I'm sure things are different than if it hadn't have happened. As I have mentioned before, in 56 years of life, I really haven't had anything extraordinarily bad happen to me. Oh, I've lost loved ones for sure, but except for my Mom, who passed away at age 60, my relatives had all lived long, full lives. No, I had never really borne a cross on my shoulders.

Well, now I have one. It is certainly my hope, expectation, and fervent prayer that in a matter of months this cancer will be completely removed from me, never to return, and I will be sufficiently healed and recovered from it. But that will not be the end of it for me. Part of bearing a cross, as Christ did, is not just to deal with pain, suffering, and/or misfortune by yourself but how dealing with that can be of benefit to others, just like Christ's crucifixion and ultimate resurrection give us all hope for eternal life. I am committed to sharing my story and voluntering my time and efforts, or even perhaps making it the remainder of my career, to getting the colonoscopy message out there. I know there's lots of people doing similar work, but I just want to add my voice to their chorus. I grew up in the 60's and one of our mottos (and boy, did we love mottos!) was "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." I want to be part of the solution to helping prevent cancer of all kinds, until cures for them are found. I've even been thinking of eventually walking in the annual 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk for the Cure (that's coming up in Chicago in August but around the country at other times) in the future. Their motto is "Everyone deserves a lifetime." Wonder if a Baby Boomer came up with that (Remember "Make Love, Not War," "War is Not Good for Children and Other Living Things", "The Whole World's Watching", "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many men did you kill today?", "Turn on, tune in, and drop out", "Flower power", "Sex, drugs, and rock and roll", "The Times they are a-changin'", "If it feels good, do it", "Don't trust anyone over 30" and dozens more?)? So I did not search out this cross; it was thrust upon me. But given that it was, I just want to be an instrument in fewer people having it also thrust upon them. If I can do that, if I can affect the lives of others in a positive way, then the weight of that cross wasn't that great that I couldn't bear it after all.