Write about Fear

Writing about my fears is easy. Facing them takes guts. Fears are personal, intangible. Fear lives within. No one sees it. When I was asked to write about fear, I hesitated. I moved my pen across the paper. Should I share this personal journey? Should I open up? I tried to think about my childhood fears. Sitting in a dentist chair. Waking up suddenly from a nightmare. Or what about some of my adult fears? Finding out my husband was having an affair. Universal fears. Things that touch the human condition, shake the soul. Should I share? Ok. Pen on paper scratching an outline of a fear I experienced.

2003 - a year that was supposed to be my bellweather year. My oldest son graduating from college. And not only graduating, but with honors, summa cum laude! And his major was aerospace engineering. Tough courses. Math and science. I am astonished a guy with such a mind came out of me. He was also getting married a week later. I was busting with motherly pride. It was the last year of my forties and life was really good.

Until.... I was drifting off to sleep one night in that twilight time of not asleep, not awake. I was doing a self exam like every woman ought to do regularly. There was something that should not be there, just a pea-sized thing. Hard. I ignored it and went to sleep, but it was gnawing at me. I slept fitfully. I din't tell anyone for three weeks. But it was there. I would not steal my son's spotlight. It was his year! He had worked so hard for this. I kept silent. But like all things ugly I sweep away, push out of sight, toss in the garbage, this would not disappear. I felt it during graduation, through the wedding, at the reception. There was this thing that I knew I had to face.

Finally, the whirl of life slowed and I called the doctor. He got me in that day. Time for an ultrasound now. I saw it on the screen. It was bigger and nastier and darker than it felt. It looked like a gargoyle without a face. Just this black spot looking back at me with a vacant stare. My fear caught me in the throat. The technician glanced sideways at me. She knew I knew, but she would not speak. I saw their looks. She left the room to get the doctor. Decided to do a biopsy right then.

My husband was nervous but quiet. We lived silently with our fear for another week while the biopsy was shipped out to be examined microscopically. It was not necessary to go back to hear the results. I told my husband what I expected. He was introspective as we sat in the room waiting. My doctor arrived with a large manilla envelope and stoic face. She was guarded, "This is not the news I want to deliver to anyone. It seems to be news I am sharing more and more."

A woman hears she has breast cancer. Is that the greatest fear of life? I think there are worse fears. Losing a child is a mother's worst fear; losing a breast is bad but not as bad. I lived through the cancer, the surgeries, the chemo. I am free. I am a survivor. It was a year I would not want to relive. It was a scary, fearful time. But I embraced my fears and learned about cancer. I learned mine was only stage two. Survivable. Life goes on. Happily I might add. I'm back in school determined to get this degree, maybe more.

Fears come and go. What do we do with them? Face them. Embrace them. Accept them. Nothing is as bad as it seems. Change is inevitable. The experience did not kill me, but made me stronger. Sounds cliche. But aren't cliches formed out of universal experiences.