I just got home from my Tuesday night meditation class. The class consists of a 40 minute semi-guided meditation in the vipanassa tradition of mindful awareness, followed by a dharma talk on some very meaningful topic, such as loving kindness, nonjudgment, or the topic tonight, attachment to views. After years of Tuesday nights spent in this way, I am very slowly acquiring the skill of being mindfully aware of just “what is.” I see longer glimpses of the peace that comes when I concentrate on my breath and place my awareness in the present moment. Tonight, however, that practice was shot to hell and back. My mind was like hornet’s nest that had just been clubbed with a baseball bat. Tonight my mind “had a mind of its own” and I could no more be in the present moment than I could win the gold on the balance beam.

The last several weeks have presented many learning and growing opportunities for those of us on The Second Road Team. Melissa Shore, our ED, had to leave suddenly and drive to New York, where here sister is in the last stages of metastatic breast cancer, is a single mom with three kids at home, two away at school and one in the army. Melissa is her closest relative and is trying to balance keeping our website operational while doing all the leg work, providing emotional support for her nieces and nephews, and seeing to it that her sister gets the best possible care at this stage of her terminal illness.

Beth Elliott is our development director and her sister is also in the final stages of terminal breast cancer. The cancer has now spread to her esophagus and she is going through additional radiation and other treatments so she can extend whatever time she has left to be with her 7 and 10 year old children. Beth has made all the arrangements for their mom to fly in from Illinois for this period of palliative care and to be available at any and every moment to help her sister and her niece and nephew make this transition with as much love and support as possible.

The person in my life who I have been trying to keep clean for the last 3 years is out getting high as I write this blog. I (along with his sisters) have tried every means humanly possible to offer him every possibility at rehab. He enters every program (and their have been many) and returns to the streets. He will either end up dead or in prison. It is just a matter of time. I have been holding on to the “five minutes before the miracle” cliche for 3 years and my serenity has been taken to the edge of the abyss. I can no longer afford this relationship.

Beth came to meditation and sat next to me tonight. I could tell she had been crying. At least she got up out of bed and went to the gym today. After work I just came home and crawled under the covers until it was time to get my butt out of bed and go to meditation. I know that “it is what it is.” As a matter of fact, it is my mantra, but when events such as these happen to dear friends who are all doing the right thing, I cannot help but ask, “Why?”

Why is Melissa’s sister dying?

Why is Beth’s sister dyiing?

Why is my friend killing himself?

Why did my father die when I was 12 ?

Why was my sister ushered into this world with so many defects that she was basically a physical vegetable until her death at age 24?

Why did my angelic mom get ovarian cancer and die too early?

Why is my sister still so bitter that she will not talk to me?

Why isn’t this phenomenal website, a true labor of love for Melissa, not getting the financial support it deserves?

Why does Beth have to work 3 times harder than anyone I know to compensate for a brain injury from a car accident that was not her fault?

Why did I turn out to be an addict?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Blah…blah…blah…blah…blah…blah…

Why even ask?

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior