Six years we've already been in this. Six years of living with cancer in your family. My husband has cancer. He has "survived" the magical five years. We have had many conversations together, especially in the last two years. And with our children. And those weren't really about 'fighting' or 'battling' or 'resisting' at all. They were much more about the value of life itself. That you can't really do anything but let what's in store for you come to you. And that only then can you really see what life means and how you can fill it in. From a deep well of experience and perception. And that life is actually not much different than breathing in and out. Something we do unconsciously. Just like blinking your eyes. Or the beating of your heart. We don't do anything about that, that's something our body does itself. Imagine if you had to think about your heartbeat. And then one day you would forget. Then life would really stop.

 

If you get sickness in your life then you really see what life is. A person who is sick and who is conscious can actually observe the evolution and mutation of man from within himself. Illness causes you to very consciously turn inward. Not from consciousness, but from awareness. You actually start to experience how your body works if you dare to listen to the signals it gives. But before you get there, before you have transformed that awareness into consciousness, you go through a process with different stages.

 

It starts with the shock. The diagnosis itself. Listening to the message that you have cancer and then the transformation of that in your mind. The mind immediately takes charge. Thoughts, conditioning from the past, experiences of others who have had the diagnosis, the first thing that comes into your mind is death. Fear of death. Fear of everything you have to lose. Fear of the future. Fear of the process you have to go through. I am going to die. That's what your mind is saying to you. "You are going to die."

 

And your body is not there at all yet. It is still fully alive. But the mind is busy distracting from that life and is preoccupied with death. And looking for reasons. "Why does this have to happen to me. I've lived a healthy life, haven't I? I've never had anything, never seen the inside of a hospital, and now this? What did I do to deserve this?". And meanwhile, the body just goes on. With living. With breathing. With the heartbeat. Only the mind makes a story of its own. A story based mostly on other people's experiences. And on reasons that should be there. And on the in your mind factual situation that getting cancer means death. Period.

 

The mind, by the way, is also spoiled in this by the outside world. Because everyone agrees with the mind. The medical circus which is started up to see if the disease can be fought, what can be done about it. And everything is based on general experience. Not for one moment the person itself is considered. How that person is composed. And that's crazy. We all have our own DNA profile, our own fingerprints, a unique iris, and yet we treat illness as something that requires a general solution. So the mind is literally handed the conditioning space it grabs on a silver platter.

 

People in society do the same thing. Everyone looks at others from the general, homogeneous glasses. Whereas we are unique beings. And in our hearts we know that. But still.

 

Life is life. That's all it is. Breathing and being in the moment itself. There is no future. There is no past. Yes, there are memories. But memories are colored. They are subjective. And they are not complete. No one can remember every second of his or her life. Nor do they have to at all. We are not here to remember, but to be present in the moment. To live in the moment, in the NOW. In fact, the body cannot do anything else but that. Our mind can walk around in the past and in the future. But our body can only be in the moment. In one place. Where no one else can be.

 

And when you look at it that way. From conscious BEING rather than conscious BECOMING, then death is also only present in the NOW. You are only dead when you are dead. Not before, not after. And why are we so afraid of it anyway?

 

My husband is no longer afraid of death. He wants to live, but he also knows that when the time comes for him to go that that is how it is. He has become resigned to life. And when you become resigned to life, you take life to the fullest. And that doesn't mean there is no pain. If you are resigned to life, then you don't fight the pain, you let the pain be. To live is to be in the moment. And each moment has its own fingerprint. Resignation in life gives sight to love and to surrender. It ensures that you no longer flee, it ensures that you live each moment. In the form that is just there then. My husband describes it in a very inspiring way. Without wanting to be complete in this, he says, "I see myself and I see all the people around me. Like ants busy with anything and everything, except actually living. And I sit on my own mountain, I observe and I feel happy. Because life can only be NOW. There is no running, there is no fear, there is no fighting when you are present and living in the moment. There is really only love".

 

Love for life.