So I survived Christmas.  It was, in a way, a bit more mentally draining than other years.  I was very happy to come home.

Part of this post was in my head before I left but it just wasn’t quite “ready” yet.  It sounded (in my head) like I was on a whiny rant and that was not the intent.  I knew it had to be put on the back burner for a while to simmer.  Good thing, too, because I had an “ah ha!” moment.

For a bit of background, my sister in law (SIL) is a bit of an enigma, she’s hard to figure out most of the time.  She tends to be moody and can be withdrawn.  I have learned to tread very lightly while staying in their house – I stay out of the way, keep quiet, and keep my head down until the mood passes.  She and her mother (who will be referred to as “MIL”) have a passive aggressive relationship that even my brother does not claim to understand.  So there ya go, that is the very short version of a complex family thing.

So I arrived on Wednesday evening and SIL says not a word about the recent diagnosis.  It was like it never happened.  Huh.  I was a little, I dunno, disappointed?  Dismayed?  Hurt?  Hard to say.  So I said not a word about ANYTHING to do with ANYTHING other than idle chit chat.

I then saw MIL Christmas Eve and the first thing she says is “how are you feeling?” and proceeds to have a dialog about the surgery, etc.  All was fine until she said “oh, they aren’t going to do a full incision? Then that’s nothing, you will be fine in a day or two”.  Really.  Just so you know, that will piss off anyone facing major surgery for, oh yeah, cancer.  SIL did not participate in that conversation.

Then my nephew and his wife (is she now my niece? I get confused) and the first thing Niece says is “how are you feeling?”.  Super nice girl, she’s a keeper!

And then I’m thinking about this.  I have known SIL for over 25 years.  I had little contact with MIL until about 10 years ago.  I barely know Niece aside from spending some time with her here and there on visits up north.  See where I’m going with this?

Christmas Day, Niece’s parents came over for dinner.  I met the parents this past year at the bridal shower and wedding and we just really clicked.  I think that sort of irritates SIL, but, well, too bad.  First thing the mother says is “How are you feeling?” which was followed up by a conversation where she revealed she lost a breast to breast cancer years ago.  She gave me a look and I knew, just knew, that she completely understood the mental anxiety of recent weeks.  Finally.

This was followed by MIL’s rant about doctors and how they don’t know anything and how hospitals are filthy.  Heard it all before but just wanted to her shut her pie hole.

By the day after Christmas, I was truly wondering if my worry and anxiety was somehow “wrong”.  That maybe it really WAS all just no big deal.  I mean, other people had been pooh poohing my anxiety, maybe they were right?

Some of my friends seemed to downplay things once they found out that the cancer was “caught early” (and I should therefore consider myself somehow lucky….lucky would be not having cancer at all) and because the surgery would be done in a minimally invasive way (we hope).  Oh, one friend said, then it will be minor surgery.  No, no it won’t.  They will still be removing my entire reproductive system plus maybe a few choice lymph nodes which, at least to me, means major surgery.  After conversations like these, I just shut down.

 And now for the “ah ha” moment.  I happened upon a book titled “Let Me Be Weak: What People in Pain Wish They Could Tell You” and I read it in about an hour after which I felt so much better.  If you want to brush up your empathy skills or know someone who is grieving and want to help get them through it, I highly recommend the book.  It brought me more peace than anything else I have read.

For the most part we (and I include myself) freeze up when trying to talk to people who are in pain, who are struggling, or who are grieving.  We think we don’t know what to say so we repeat the age old crap of “stay strong”, “think positive”, “you’ll get over it”, or whatever else.

Empathy is described as the ability to project oneself into someone else’s narrative and see the world as they see it.  Yes.  How good are you at doing this?  Can you step into someone else’s shoes and visualize what they are going through?  It’s not as easy as you think.

“Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we’re not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.” ~ Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

What the author points out is our society forces people to “be strong” when sometimes that just doesn’t work.  Sometimes, we feel vulnerable and weak and that is ok, too.  It’s something I am struggling with right now. I feel the need to “be strong” and keep everything together when I just want to curl up in a corner and let someone else take care of things without feeling judged.

And then it occurred to me that the various family members have different ways to deal with the situation.  SIL has never been an open, caring, touchy feely person.  She is way low on the empathy scale – that all became clear when I remembered what happened when my mom was sick so many years ago.  SIL never – not once – came to see my mom in the hospital and my mom was really upset about it.  It wasn’t that SIL didn’t care, she just doesn’t know how to show it.  That was the ah ha moment and I felt much better.

I will leave you with song lyrics by the author of Let Me Be Weak:

I know I seem alright,

But it’s been a long and lonely fight

I can see I need a safe place to land

Would you be kind and hold out your hand?

You don’t have to find the words to say 

‘Cause we don’t always know if we’re gonna be ok

So don’t try to fix me; Let me be weak

When there’s nothing left to do,

You’ll have to pray me through

Give me time; I need to heal

I don’t want to hide the way I feel