A Sacred Trust

Today, I’m writing in a state of mind one might describe as overwrought, and all because I feel so many things changing around me now–the most significant change of the day having to do with my doctor.  People who know me well know that I return to the hospital several times a year for blood-work; and, since my sick season ended, my blood has always been monitored by the very first myeloma specialist I ever saw.  This doctor is the one who first educated me about the disease, several years before I became ill actually, and he’s the one who treated me when I did become ill–and he’s the one who’s remained my “guardian” for years as I’ve moved forward on the other side of blood cancer and transplant/treatment.

Well, this doctor, my doctor, is going to work at a different hospital in a new town and I find myself feeling quite unsettled by this.  I honestly didn’t think changing doctors would bother me all that much, which does indeed show that I am probably somewhat out of touch with the domino effect of “real” life down here because I am truly a people person to the core (thus, of course, such a change would rattle me).  My doctor really was my trench buddy; though he’d never known firsthand what it felt like to have cancer invading his own body, he seemed to somehow understand.  And he never left me in the battlefield alone–he had my back at every turn.  So, my feelings of attachment to him are only natural, the cause and effect of that sacred doctor/patient trust.

As I reflected on this today, I could not help but think of all the times I’ve changed jobs in the past, moving from one school or school system or institution of higher education to another.  And I can honestly say that I never really thought all that much about the effect of my comings and goings.  I just never viewed myself as significant or instrumental enough for my presence to have a real impact on those around me.  I was very wrong.  Whether it’s a doctor and a patient, a teacher/professor and a student or a priest and a congregant, our relationships with one another do matter so very much.  I would even say our very lives here do indeed depend upon the relationships which do comprise them.

In this most individualistic society of ours, I feel like we’re often almost ashamed to admit how very much the people in our lives mean to us, how very much we depend upon them–since we tend to view admitting this as a real weakness.  But, right now today, after crying most of the way home from the hospital, I’m going to borrow a page from the handbook of other world cultures, collectivistic cultures who know and accept the fact that they really do need each other in order to live this life down here well.  And I’m going to work on refusing to beat myself up for feeling as if I do need those around me.  Of course I need others.  We weren’t created for ourselves; we were created for others–and for God.

And at the end of this day, and every other day, I believe we were simply made for relationships–a relationship with God and with one another.  I’m amazed at how quickly I forget these things.  For a while, when I was sick and then right after, I saw that one of the greatest lessons I had learned through illness was how interconnected we all are.  And now, after being well for several years, I feel like I forgot that lesson and allowed myself again to be sucked into a mindset of proud independence, until today when I saw my dear doctor for what could be the last time.  Yes, at some point, it does cost us to care about and connect with one another, but I believe it costs us much, much more if we choose not to.