Just Don't Challenge Me to Arm Wrestle

I’m super excited to have been invited to join a blog group alongside three talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.   

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie

Moma Rock

          

            I chose this week’s topic:  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

            

            The topic had been rattling around in my brain for a few months, ever since Moma Rock asked us to share an inspiring quote.  I spent most of that post deriding inspirational quotes (except, interestingly, those supplied by AA), particularly the expression “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

            Then, a few weeks later, I had a conversation with a psychologist I know.  We were talking about my volunteer work with hospice.  She said she was happy I enjoyed my time with my patients, and she mentioned how not everyone could do that kind of work.  I wondered about that.  I mean, I guess it’s true, as so many of my friends and family members have said they could not regularly spend time with dying people and grieving families.  And yet I’ve wondered whether their shared conclusion is actually true.  I think I’ve always thought if I can do something, anyone can.  I’m not special.  I’m just me.

            But as I considered my psychologist friend’s words, I realized that a few years ago, I don’t know that I could have spent my time with dying people.  I thought about the moment I decided to try, and what preceded that decision.  I’ve mentioned before that 2011 and 2012 were rough years for my family and me.  My eldest daughter was in and out of the hospital on and off during that time, and once she was out of crisis mode, my middle daughter was diagnosed with autism.  Mixed in there was an assortment of heart-bending losses, deaths of aunts and uncles and friends that nearly brought me to my knees.  Fast forward to July of 2013 when I unceremoniously “lost” my job, and emotionally I was stripped bare.  I was also immediately overcome with an irresistible desire to serve others.  I couldn’t explain it, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it until I read a fictional account of a hospice volunteer and the light bulb went off.  I tried it.  I liked it.  It helped fill the gaping hole.

            Had I not suffered the losses and faced the struggles I’d faced, I don’t think I’d be able to work with hospice patients, and I told my psychologist friend as much.  I said, “I think everything I went through made me colder.”  She scrunched up her face and shook her head.  “No,” she said, “it didn’t make you colder.  It made you able to separate yourself.  It allowed you distance.”

            I chewed on that.  And as I did so, the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” kept coming to mind.  My experience begged the question:  did my experiences strengthen me?  Does my ability to spend time with people (and their families) at the end of life = strength?  Perhaps.  But maybe it also means I experienced a death of my own, the end of an innocence I once had but now have lost and will never regain.  Does that mean I’m tougher?  And, if so, is that necessarily a good thing?

            Obviously, I don’t know the answer.  I do know I am not the same person I was in early 2011.  Even my husband has noticed, and when we were discussing the rough patch and he said to me, “That changed you,” I didn’t disagree.  I couldn’t.  He was right.  (Oh, he’d love to hear me say that.)  I am different.  Good or bad, thanks to some serious grief, I don’t see the world the way I did just a few years ago.  But I don’t know that I’m ready to call that “strength.” 

            I can think of myriad examples of times when something didn’t kill someone, but instead left them worse for the wear.  I have a good friend who battled (and so far has beaten) cancer.  Although the cancer is gone, physically she is by no means stronger.  She and I could both catch a cold and I’ll be fine in a few days while it will take her months to heal – and she will probably end up with some kind of respiratory infection.  Emotionally, the cancer wore her down.  Perhaps it had something to do with the fact she fought (and won) at the same time her father fought (and lost).  I know she feels fortunate to be here, but battling her disease took something away from her.  And the question remains:  is she stronger?  I don’t think so. 

            Then, too, I could not help but think of Robin Williams as I typed this post.  Since none of us knew him personally, we can only guess at the battles he faced and the impact each struggle held.  Something did kill him, likely a toxic mix of addiction and depression (they tend to walk hand in hand).  But I’m left to wonder whether, after each round of rehab, did he feel stronger?  Or did each chapter slowly chip away at him, leaving him weakened and ultimately gone.  And yet I would never, ever think of him as “weak” for the ultimate choice he made.  But I'm guessing he did not feel strong.

            I won’t focus on whether the “new” me is better or worse or stronger or weaker.  I just am.  And I’m glad that my newly found ability to create distance (without losing my ability to empathize) has allowed me to serve others in a way that (I guess) other people cannot.  I won’t think about the hows or whys, but instead I’ll just take this new skill as the gift it seems to be.