Dear Ms. Coombs,

Thank you for your April 5, 2015 RGJ column, Finding healing through the words of Dr. Suess: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” I am glad he provides you relief. Coping skills grow from these events.

In the last 70 years, I developed many coping skills. I used them for the last two major ones: the amputation of my left leg below the knee in 2012, a wonderful gift because I’m out of pain (which registered at the 7 and 8 level even while resting) and then chemotherapy once monthly from March to July 2014. The rat poison killed the tumor, about the size of my fist, wrapped around my aorta where it bifurcates and killed my brains: memory and functioning. Couldn’t think or remember much. Currently my degenerative disc disease, or as I like to call it, my degenerate disc disease, generates chronic pain at three to four on the pain meter, occasionally spiking to a steady six followed by higher pain when I irritate it. Alas, no more golf. Before the back pain, I golfed on the new leg. “Accept the things I cannot change.” Several spinal interventions; drat, only minimal relief.

Last December and January, I went through the most painful experience of my life. Worse than losing my jock identity my sophomore year at Whitman College. Clipped twice, ruptured two discs and never played again, after playing since I was eight. Afterwards, sciatic pain dogged me for 20 years. This Winter pain worse than my first divorce, much more painful than mother’s death last April.

During this winter storm, I relearned the AA precepts of forgiveness and acceptance… the Serenity Prayer’s balm. Read Pema Chadron, When Things Fall Apart and David Rico’s The Five Things We Cannot Change: and the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them. I like Rico, because the Serenity Prayer in his focal point. In AA, we recite it at every meeting. Over the last 34 years, I’ve heard it 6000+ times. His message: change the inevitable. Suess-like, celebrate the past and accept it.

I wrote this haiku to celebrate and accept my loss:

To welcome the stump,

I wrote goodbye to my shin.

Glory days! Then wept.

Philosophically, I try to live in the Eternal Now. Those ads that talk about good futures water the mirage of control. Spiritual Fools Gold. In AA we say, “Man plans and God laughs.” We make plans but no longer plan the outcome. Spiritual equilibrium dies from stated and unstated expectations.

Rico says, everything changes and everything ends and pain is a part of life. The Buddha says the root of suffering is attachment. Like attachment to those pesky outcomes. Grieving is part of life. I’m glad you celebrated your son’s new coaching life and Mason’s toothy T-ball smile, “accepting the things you cannot change.

I hope this helps you on your, probably perpetual, healing journey. Keep up the good work. Thanks for your courage to share yourself with us.

Blue skies,
C.S.