Living in Duality

When Robin selected the hospice route she felt freed up from a future of "doctor visits and chemotherapy treatments". To her that meant the opportunity to get her strength back and to work toward riding her bicycle again. Robin's always been so positive - but when she selected the hospice route I hadn't expected that she would once again achieve that degree of freedom.

While I began to work with family members to make sure we had lots of visitors the last few weeks, Robin kept saying she wanted time alone to recover and that she could always meet with folks later - after she had her strength back.

I struggled for a few days trying to reconcile the differences between our two attitudes. In the end I realized that as her primary support person (and husband) it was my responsibility to help her develop steps and milestones to achieve her goals - not just as an exercise but with the intention that she would be able to meet them. In the end we compromised so that she has had some wonderful visits with family, while we also have actively discussed what "baby steps" she needed to make in order to achieve her goals of regaining her strength and riding her bicycle.

The glue that has kept my mind together while holding these two perspectives was a gift from my counselor Alex. He suggested that this was not a time in our lives to let our level of communication decrease, rather we should strive for better communication than ever before. The topic came up in December because Robin was hoping for a cure from a treatment center outside the U.S. I had done some research and found nothing positive about the company, but I didn't want to tell Robin because I thought she might lose hope. Alex pointed out how it cruel it would be to let her continue to have hope in an option which did not exist, only to inform her later of the bad news. That night I went home and told Robin the bad news about the company and it actually helped move us forward by eliminating one more variable.

Anyway, the increased communicaiton has helped me numerous times in the last few weeks. I've been able to support Robin's goals, but at the same time I've been able to continue to state my thoughts and observations in a positive way.

For example, in supporting Robin's goal to ride her bike I noted that we should make small achievements to get there - walk down the block, walk around the block and eventually try a short bike ride. She still hasn't been out of the house, but I felt the important thing was that we recognized how to meet the goal and we've continued to focus on getting thru the first steps, instead of simply saying each day "yeah, next week you'll ride your bike".

While it would have been great to see Robin ride her bike again, the greater reward for us has been the ability for us to talk about the issues and work together - toward mutual but seemingly opposing goals. Our efforts would have been pretty hollow if I had just parroted her statements about riding her bike again without really meaning what I said.