The Triumph of The Human Spirit

The triumph of the human spirit - the will to survive.

In our lives, we see glimpses of this every day. We see them in the eyes that tell a story of survivors – and however this word translates for you; we hear them in the words of those who have overcome unbeatable odds and have lived to tell a tale; we feel it flow through our veins when faced with a challenge that proves daunting and places the palpable bone-chilling fear at our feet.

I have seen many go through challenges that have called upon the will to survive – that have asked to triumph over that which simply is. And it is my belief from both as a participant and an spectator that our thoughts and beliefs play a major role. Our thoughts affect our health, our healing.

When my mother was first diagnosed with cancer she was given six months to live. My mother was a tiny, little fiery woman that weighed 100 lbs. soaked and wet. When the doctor gave her the news, in front of us, we were all devastated. Except her. In her determined usual way, she proclaimed she was not yet ready to leave this world and if anybody was going to call the shots, it was going to be her. She left us stunned. She added that she still had many more grandchildren that had not come into the world to which she wanted to get to know and love. She went ahead and had the requisite radiation and chemo treatments and six months later not only was she still alive, but also had managed to put the cancer in remission. And she lived for another 15 years. And in those fifteen years no more grandchildren came into the world, but a multitude of great-grandchildren did; in those fifteen years she continued to fill our hearts with love and our homes with warmth; in those fifteen years she began to see the deterioration of my father’s illness into dementia and was there to hone and keep his memories alive with tales of a life lived together.

This was the first triumph into the power and strength of the human spirit that I ever witnessed. My mother’s will to survive trumped any diagnoses given her. Not once did she believe in the words that announced her impending death; not once did she allow them to seep into her mind and eat away at her only saving grace: her belief that she would survive. Instead, she immediately chose her own language filled with words of faith, perseverance, strength, power, anger (yes, anger), prayer, belief, and love and it was the only language she spoke and allowed others to speak. We were not allowed to treat her like she would soon leave us or look at her with eyes of pity. Yes, she needed our help, but not our pity. She needed us to stand in unity with her in her belief, whether or not we believed it ourselves.

When she finally passed away our world seemed to have come to an end. We were all left in a daze, confused, wondering how we would go on. The anchor that kept us stable and firmly rooted in our lives had been severed by the rite of passage of life.

Two years later, my father died. My father was a physically healthy man, never suffered from blood pressure, or any other illness. His cross was the dementia he received later in life. Funny thing was that even though he would at times have difficulty recognizing us, he never had difficulty recognizing my mother. Never. When my mother passed away, he sensed her loss. Intuitively he knew something was wrong, yet could not figure out what that was. A year before his death and a year after my mother’s death, we had to make the troubling and difficult decision to put him in a nursing home because we could no longer care for him. He needed 24-hour care. In the one year after my mother's passing, his dementia seemed to take a fast road south. But each time I’d visit him, whether he recognized me or not, he’d ask for his wife. Each and every time. Where is she? Where is your Mama? He never forgot her. The dementia which protected him from knowing what was wrong with him, did not protect his heart from knowing it missed her. The last conversation I had with him turned out to be a lucid and happy day for him and a very sad one for me. He recognized me as soon as I came into the room. It had been awhile since I last heard my name said with recognition. He informed me it was “time to go home.” I immediately knew what that meant and a tear crept into the corner of my eye. I thought, he’s giving up. He finally lost his will to live. His mind somehow finally realized my mother was no longer in the physical world with us. He looked at me like he had not done in years and comforted me and told me that I would be all right because I was grown and had a family of my own with a wonderful husband who would always take care of me. He held my hand and told me not to cry because “your Mama needs me and I have to go.” How could I not understand this, his eyes seemed to beseech. My mother needed him. It was as simple as that. But then again, my father was a simple man who lived a simple, long, happy life. He never became encumbered by the material things of life but rather became involved in the beauty of what life could bring. As I write this, my heart cries in remembrance of this wonderful man who in the end found that it was not worth to live without his love. A few days later, he was gone. Not because of a heart attack; not because of an illness. Simply, his heart stopped beating finally acknowledging the loss of his life - a connection he so desperately needed severed by a rite of passage of life; a connection to which he was quickly ready to mend.

And, in the end, sometimes our simple will to live and triumph in this life or the decision to finally let go, lies in the words we choose to believe and in the heart that senses and seeks its truth.