Nothing Ahead, Nothing Behind

There's an ancient story I teach called The Epic of Gilgamesh. In it, Gilgamesh, part god and part man, takes a journey into the underworld to bring back from the dead a friend whose life was taken unjustly by a goddess. At one point, as Gilgamesh is traveling league by league into the underworld, there is a long passage in which the storyteller states repeatedly that Gilgamesh "...could see nothing ahead and nothing behind him."

Despite this, once Gilgamesh arrives in the underworld he does gain, for his trouble, wisdom that he would not have gained if he had not made the journey.

I used to think that going through this cancer was going to give me, if not wisdom, at least, information, or rather, perhaps, things I needed to know.

But now that I am in the darkness, I am much like Gilgamesh. For, like him, I seen nothing ahead or behind. Gilgamesh could not have known when he was going through that darkness that there might be some worth, however small, in going through that darkness.

I am hoping I know better. That is, I hope I can have faith in all those verses of the bible that repeatedly tell me that God has a plan for me. In fact, I can do more than hope, in the greater part of me. For I actually believe that all will be well since it is well with my soul.

Yet I am weak. I feel sadness all the same, despite my understanding that God will bring me through this.

Complicated, isn't it?

And, I suppose, the only reason I share this irony is to make clear how complicated things can be for those battling cancer. Especially when the treatments have ended and life (it's been said) resumes normally.