Fly

The "I'm done" continues; the implementation of being done, in particular. Rather than just diving over the railing, I've been, and am, contacting the people who are going to take over the "play the music" job that I'm not going to do any more. Talking to the organist about the oddities of the organ he'll be using, creating the folders of the music that the "pit band" will be using. Yeah, I know, if I'm really just "pulling the big yellow handle" to fire off the ejector seat, I could just leave this all to them, but my concern is for the kids and their parents not the institution, and having done this for so long and having gotten it down very much to a science... it seemed the proper thing to do.

In her very thoughtful response to my most recent post, Abby shared her own experience with the facing of "I'm done" in her own life; and part of what she shared was

MS is so much about loss and change.

That it is, that it is... but part of me wants to "push back" against one word: "Loss." Indeed there is, and in my own journey, plenty of it... but loss creates gain. They're on opposite sides of the same coin. The leaves fall, so the new ones have room to grow. The butterfly cannot emerge from the chrysalis unless the caterpillar... dies. The creature that is both the caterpillar and the butterfly lives on, the entity that exists between and within them both, lives on; but the caterpillar as the caterpillar has to die, because it's only then that the butterfly can be born. Grasping the truth of loss creating gain is one of the hardest things we (c'mon, "I") have to face... but that's as much the way nature works as what our bodies go through with M.S., with age, with... just being alive.

Look, let's (forget "us," let me) be honest here... Facing the passing of anything beloved is hard. Damned hard. The more precious it was, the harder it is. It's even harder when you're the one who is the only one who can "pull the big yellow handle," the EJECT lever... you're the only one who can pull it, you're the one who has to pull it.

But once you do... you fly.

So yeah, you pull the big yellow handle, you fly, but you still need the parachute. The same it is with us who travel the Neurological Highway, we still need out assistive-whatevers to keep us operating in the world as it is, we still need each other to help us make it over the bumps in the road. But that's our ... OK, my ... big challenge: Really come to terms with pulling the handle. And actually pulling the handle.

So: Face needing to pull the handle, cop to needing to pull the handle, and pull the damned handle, unapologetically... because, c'mon, if the airplane is on fire, out of control, and about to explode, it's definitely time to pull the handle.

So... Let it go. It's time to leave. Pull the handle.

And... fly.