I wake up every morning feeling older than the day before. Of course I passed my fifty-ninth year a couple of weeks ago, while on vacation, and I deserve it. In that week we traveled to the Gulf, Orange Beach specifically, and just driving that far takes a toll on my old bones. I even walked up the one hundred and seventy-seven steps of historic Pensacola Lighthouse without break anything or suffering much. I was amazed at myself. Now I feel it. Sometimes our brain and body cooperate to help us get us through the things we put our bodies through. Sometimes it doesn’t cooperate at all.
I received a letter recently from one of my two regular readers. I met this lady at my estate sale last spring, and she is the only person to ever receive an autograph from me. She even let me take a selfie with her. Then I got her name wrong when I wrote about her in my column. Sometimes our memory doesn’t cooperate with our brain very well, either. Ms. Marilee is a local resident and wrote to me, via the newspaper, to ask me to write about chronic pain. She suffers from it herself, due to post-shingles neuropathy, and told me that “it steals your serenity”. Now, I gripe a lot about getting older, and I don’t feel as good as I used to, but I can’t pretend to know how Marilee feels. I do have a couple of people in my life that I think may.
My sister, Pam, has fought cancer for a long time, now. She has suffered through radiation and chemo treatments that would put my own radiation experience to shame. She still goes regularly to get a treatment at the Kirkland Cancer Center, a great organization that helped me as well. All through her experiences I have seen her hurt. When I talk to her about it, she just acts like it’s a normal part of what she has to do to keep on living. She takes living seriously nowadays, too. She travels. She sees friends often. She does things like snorkeling and stomping grapes at the winery. She enjoys life as much as anyone I know. Even through the pain.
I have a daughter-in-law that suffers from Lupus. She’s a nurse. She has two beautiful children, who just happen to be my grandchildren. She gets up every morning and goes to work. Her joint pain gives her problems. She runs fevers randomly. She gets sick easily. She’s had covid more times than anyone I know. But she keeps getting up and living. I’m sure she hurts a lot some days, and never mentions it. She’s been the only breadwinner in her house, in the past, and knows that her children count on her. Even now, married to a hard-working husband who helps her with everything, she is devoted to pressing through her own pain to care for her family. Connie is a trooper. I don’t know how she does it, but I know it involves love.
When I met you, Marilee, I didn’t know you were hurting. All I saw was an interesting woman who liked yard sales and made my entire day better by admitting that you actually read my column in the newspaper. You smiled and put up with my selfie, and my odd sense of humor. I couldn’t see your pain. You didn’t point it out, or wear it like a badge for anyone to see. You were living, interacting, and doing what you liked to do: shopping for bargains amid the piles of my semi-organized junk. That’s the most important thing I think I can say about pain. You just have to keep living through it. Do what you love. Be around who you love. Even when it hurts. Even when they don’t know you’re hurting.
Thank you for writing to me, Marilee. I’ll pray for you not to hurt today. In the meantime, keep doing whatever you love. That’s what livings all about, after all.
God bless Y’all.
Rolling Stones 