While the four words above will be familiar to everyone, I wanted to share my perspective on them.I have spent hours meditating on their meaning and have found it to be vexingly elusive.
For anyone who has suffered loss, Acceptance is paramount.For someone with ALS, which continues to take more and more each month, it is particularly difficult.There are many levels of Acceptance.When I try to shortcut the process, I can convince myself that I have accepted my current situation.However, I arrive at the next obstacle- Forgiveness- being completely unable to move forward.As anyone who knows me will tell you, I obsess about things that I can't figure out, so the inability to get to Forgiveness would send me back to work on Acceptance over and over. What I realize is that Acceptance is more of a spiritual state than a mental one, and that only by truly accepting my situation could I arrive at Forgiveness, and be able to maintain the mental state necessary to move forward.
At times, the process reminds me of when I was trying to play the perfect solo.I could think about it, practice it, reconstruct it, deconstruct it, etc.But in the end, it always sounded contrived. It was only through letting go and letting the music dictate what needed to be played that the solo would sound natural. Likewise, the process of Acceptance is the ability to stop focusing on one's condition and simply allow it to be.When or how this occurs, I can not honestly say.But I have found myself able to arrive at Forgiveness and begin to unlock that door by forgiving the world, forgiving ALS, forgiving myself.Forgiveness has allowed me to overcome enormous amounts of anger, frustration and despair.
The true blessing came when I arrived at the doorstep of Gratitude.I suddenly found my heart open up; wanting to reach out to my family, my friends, my colleagues and say simply, "thank you" .My small attempt to reach out was met in return by a tidal wave of love, support, and compassion. Being able to hold my spirits in Gratitude allowed my family and friends to offer what they had been trying to figure out to do; namely, to help me.
This process has led me to what I see as the final stage: Hope.Hoping seems like such a simple act, yet, it takes strength, courage, and the willingness to fail in order to truly hope for what one wants and needs.I can honestly say that in the past few months, my hopes have been exceeded by such a magnitude that it has taken my breath away.Again, as people who know me can attest to, it takes a lot to make me speechless.All I can say to everyone who has been involved in this is:
