It is what it isn't

 

Staring at a gorgeous crackling fire on a moonlit Beach, I'm distracted, wresting against principalities, against power, against rulers of darkness. 

I went to bed at 9, had 2 and 1/2 hours of interrupted sleep because of prostrate cancer and countless trips to the bathroom, so now I'm up.  

It's 11:30, not even tomorrow yet!

It's not just the prostrate cancer, because my entire digestive system has been surgically reconstructed and there is no operations manual, and I'm certainly not in charge of when to go or not!

Regardless, the fire on a Beach on the TV as the night begins, calms me.  As do the candles I lit. This gives me a pleasant ambiance to spend the entire night in and, sometimes it seems Holy, Night.  

It's not a silent one because the music is cranked in my ear buds. 

I wake and bake.  

Then I sit beside Lainey on the sofa, sip coffee, and watch the whole wide world in my hands. 

But not tonight.  

Tonight, I'm fighting demons playing mind games with me just as the long night begins.  

They're relentlessly asking terrible questions that I can't answer and I find myself remembering C. S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters."

I'm trying hard to be quiet because Che and Sarah and sleeping soundly. 

Well, I pray Sarah is. 

I left her very unsoundly sleeping. 

"You'll be dead," the demons scream in the darkness, drowning out the cracking of the virtual fireplace, "they'll struggle without  you. And you'll be dead and can't do a damn thing!"

I think of Wormwood, winding things up inside your head.  

"If you'd hurry up and die, they can get on with their lives and stop spending all of their waking hours taking care of you!"

I have no response, so I turn the music up and reflect on the cracking fire on the Beach. 

"Fucking night demons," I mutter, forcing myself to eat an Apple Fritter Sarah got me from Publix.  

It's delightful, makes me feel better and so the demons grow quiet, though their questions linger in the air.  

After almost six years in my cancer journey is now mostly a matter of the mind.  

My body is going to do what it will, and I've accepted that, but the mind fucks are demonic possession at its worse.  

There's no demons of course, just the dark, unresolved, side of me screaming to be heard. 

It's just me talking to myself.  

"It is what it is," my Mom is fond of sighing, proving she is a stoic at heart. 

Except in my case, it isn't what it is. 

How am I even here still?

"Hey demons," I say, pulling myself off the sofa to pack Che's lunch and write Sarah's note, "seriously, fuck you."

I don't believe in sugar coating it and the Bible says we're to cast them out, so I'm cussing them out at the same time. 

Delightfully, I'm suddenly hungry and eat again. The rest of the day might be iffy. 

Che or Sarah burst out of the darkness, filling the room with a sleepy happiness that brings me back to life.  

The day begins. 

The demons lost. 

I'm happily celebrating because it's Che's 9th birthday and I never dreamed I'd still be here and yet here I am, because it is what it isn't.

I get to do it one more time! 

                             ______

       

My Celebration of Life delightfully lingers but is coming to an end. Help me make sure Sarah and Che will be fine without me.  

Please consider being part of their future at https://gofund.me/ffda4f4b