I had a kitchen project going on late last year when a chef was hired to teach the cooks in our house. That episode must have been worth at least two posts with lots of pictures but after a week's worth of teaching, while there were really sumptuous creations, my expectations were simply not met. The cooking focused too much on unfamiliar territory involving hard-to-spell French terms that could have been made more down to earth by simpler and more Filipino dishes. I didn't like the way the chef lumped too many recipes within 6 days -- too much of a whirlwind affair, not much training quality and most disappointing was we still didn't know where to get a wider variety of fresh ingredients. While I appreciate the actual application of some techniques in daily meals, the one week crash course could have been better planned.
I could write about food experiences like the obsessed foodies and food bloggers I so love reading but for me, the eating event has to be extremely excellent before it becomes worthwhile to describe.
I could write about the joys of parenthood but then having Facebook makes it too easy to instantly share pictures of my wonderful boy enjoying every facet life.
I could write about getting cancer but then it's too personal.
Then I got a call yesterday from my friend, Fr. Robert Reyes who asked me to make a brief reflection with photo for his book compiling stories of cancer survivors in Hong Kong. I cannot say "no" to Fr. Robert so I got something to put up on my blog as well.
Ending a Death Wish
by Joei Villarama
Death is so much easier than life. In life, you have unreachable dreams, unfulfilled hopes, time that can’t be turned back, loves that are lost. Death is peaceful eternity back in our original home where we are meant to be.
I lived with a death wish hanging over my head. When I was stationed in China, I was building up to arranging a trip to the Western most part of the country and riding the bus to Pakistan so I could end up in Afghanistan. Then I got married, had a son and told myself what silly thoughts they were and maybe I could get back to that plan when my son was old enough to take care of himself. So that death wish never left me until ironically, I had cancer and it was crystal clear that I will survive because great things are in store even for a life that seems messed up, that God will make sense of it all even without knowing exactly how.
Last year, I was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis (blood clots in my legs) which led to the discovery that I was nine weeks pregnant plus had a 12cm large ovarian mass. The ovarian mass was safely taken out when my baby was 14 weeks but then the pathology heralded bad news – malignant cells, the aggressive kind. The doctors said I could get chemotherapy while carrying the baby. This divided my family because one half of the members including me believed that the baby and I can both transcend this while the other half thought it was a foolish risk, an unwise gamble to take.
For that other half, it was important for me to survive even without the baby because that will ensure that my two year old son will have a mother as he grows. They rationalized that I already pushed my luck enough by having my first baby at 38 and that I should just be happy and grateful for that. Which doctor do we listen to? Who can we believe and trust? Eventually, they came around to respecting my decision to keep the baby while continuing the treatment. They are nervous about the effects the medication will have on the baby and worry about the worst if the baby is born with abnormalities. This is again where our faiths diverge.
We won’t know until the baby is born several months from now. Meanwhile, all we’ll have is faith or fear depending on what we choose to sustain or sink us. I choose faith and it has made a difference. Never before in my life did I have such a certainty in the goodness and generosity of God.
My death wish was borne of the fact that I will never accomplish the grand things I dream of realizing because it’s too late and I’ve fallen too far behind. I will not only remain the daughter with the lowest ROI (Return on Investment) in the world but will end up with triple negative ROI. Here I am with zero career, a uniquely complex condition, more unknowns about the future than ever before but for the first time, I have total faith and the death wish is replaced by a renewed desire for life.
Just when you’re stripped to nothing, you find everything.
Maybe that’s the slap in the face I needed to learn the lesson I couldn’t learn no matter how much I’m reminded by experience or by well-meaning advisers. My entire life I’ve pegged on a performance board with graph lines that could barely rise above mediocre. Closest friends will tell me that’s not how it goes, that the measure for success shouldn’t be income or anything in the material realm, that God loves us because we are His child and not because of what we do or achieve. Tell that to somebody who desperately wants to do something and feels powerless to do it. There’s no excuse. Not even God.
But what if God just wants to hold you in the palm of His hands and show you otherwise? You have no choice but to curl up in the grace and comfort that He, not you, is the One in control.
