For most of my life, I’ve deluded myself into believing I am somehow in control.
Getting cancer swept that illusion away, but the lesson proved astoundingly easy to forget once I started feeling better.
Today, though, I was reminded once again just how helpless we all are.
We fool ourselves into thinking there’s always something we can do to make things better, whether it’s for ourselves or for those we love.
And sometimes there just isn’t.
Still, I find it hard to give in, to surrender this illusion of control, though I know it is only an illusion. It’s just so damned hard to realize there are some situations you can’t fix.
Maybe that’s why we find it difficult to deal with terminal or serious illness.
What do we do when nothing we do will help?
I don’t know the answer to that question. Maybe all we can do is admit we don’t know what to do and ask if there’s something we haven’t thought of.
And when we have the opportunity to do anything – however small – that will make someone’s life a tiny bit better, we should act.
Because there will be times when there’s nothing we can do.
Keeping A-Breast: Cancer Lessons 