I have a ritual I love. In the octave of Christmas, when the rush
settles into cozy contentment and time unfolds a little more slowly, I sit with
an extraordinary spiral-bound goal planner that might double as a life coach
and I put words to my hopes for the coming year. Over the course of several
days, I grant myself the luxury of unhurried self-reflection and I let myself
believe that anything is possible in the year ahead.
And so it was this year. Me, with my many-colored, fine-tipped
markers, drinking endless cups of Christmas tea and creating page after page of
goals and plans. Things were moving along at an ambitious clip until Dec. 29.
Then, the focus shifted.
For me, the end of the calendar year happens to coincide with
marking the end of another cancer-free year. On Dec. 29, with very little
fanfare, I gave immeasurable thanks for my 28th year since the year I spent
keeping company with chemotherapy and radiation. Twenty-eight years.
I’ve lived more years after cancer than I lived before cancer.
Perhaps the timing is to blame, or perhaps it would have been this way no
matter when I celebrated the anniversary of my cure, but when I put Christmas
decorations away, I always take care to make sure someone else could find
everything if I weren’t here to do the unpacking next time.
That’s the thing about cancer. It leaves you knowing on no
uncertain terms that life is fragile and time is not to be taken for granted.
The focus of my plans shifted Dec. 29 this year, almost
imperceptibly at first, but then with fervor. What if, instead of focusing on
betterment — on doing more, on being more — I focused on being content where I
am? What if I challenged myself to remember to live like a cancer survivor?
What if looked at the me of 28 years ago and answered her most pressing
questions and then we looked together at the year to come.
What would she ask?
I know her first question — before even asking about the cure and
how long and whether there were secondary tumors — did I have more children.
She’d want to know if there had been siblings for the 2-year-old who was my
only child Dec. 29, 1990. How pleased (and relieved) she’d be to learn there
were eight more. How we’d delight together in the poetry of that first child’s
wedding Dec. 29 six years ago, and the four grandchildren born in quick
succession.
The girl of 1990 who’d been all but guaranteed infertility would
be so thrilled to know these children. She’d be so grateful, so eager to soak
up every second of the miracle of getting to mother them. To be a grandmother?
Not something she even allowed herself to dream.
There’d be more questions, more items of a long-ago list of plans
and prayers she’d want to know about. We could move slowly through the lot of
them and for every item on the list, she would see how God answered the prayer
with more. In time, I’d tell her about the heartaches, the real sorrows of a
real life, but mostly, I think she’d be overwhelmed with the great gift of it
all.
And so, the first goal of this new year: to remember the gift.
In order to remember, I have to pay attention. I have to slow
down. I have to look those children in the eyes and give them my full
attention. I have to inhale deeply because I really do have the time to take
full breaths and because that breath itself is a gift. I have to notice the
good, to recognize the steadfastness of God, but then to look even more closely
to see how he outdoes himself again and again. Every time I notice the gift, I
can remember the one who gives it.
To be mindful of gift and giver changes everything. Every plan,
every goal: how much better is it to make them in cooperation with the God who
outdoes himself in answering prayers? So, yes, go ahead. Put pen to paper with
those plans. But let every stroke be prayer. And at the end of every day, at
the end of every month, at the end of this new year, be astonished by his
goodness.
Foss, whose website is
takeupandread.org, is a freelance writer from Northern Virginia.