Finding the Lesson

Look for the lesson. I’m not sure where or when that concept originated in me, but it was a long time back. It had to do with the Serenity Prayer, I think. My mother hung the picture over our dining table; the old man in prayer, with the prayer printed beneath it.

I hated the prayer. No way was I ever going to pray to accept the things I could not change. I was going to pray them into submission. I didn’t speak that sentiment aloud, of course. And honestly, I didn’t think I had a “prayer” of actually accomplishing anything. I had made up my mind at an early age that God didn’t listen to me. I never questioned the existence of a higher power, back then, but I questioned the idea that “he” was loving and forgiving. The circumstances of my life certainly seemed to prove otherwise. The God in which I believed, blessed me with a mother who seemed to hate me, along with a string of villains and bad memories which haunted me without end.

As my journey continued to take me through twists and turns I could not have anticipated, somehow the idea that there was a purpose struck a chord in me. Perhaps “God” had a plan for me and someday it would all make sense.

Dealing as I did with verbal and sexual abuse as a child, and then spousal abuse, followed by the disappearance of my only child, I could not imagine what the purpose was, but I kept telling myself there must be one.

Somewhere in the course of my later therapy and support groups, that prayer reared its “ugly” voice again, and I still found I despised it. I pondered the meaning of it, wondering why so many people chose to live according to it. And then, in my bed one night and suffering from insomnia as was common then, something struck me. It made sense. Not in the way most people believed, but in a whole new way.

“The serenity to accept the things I cannot change” meant accepting my past for what it was. “The courage to change the things I can” meant resolving to live my life differently.

“The wisdom to know the difference.”

That wisdom was the realization itself; that somehow, I could accept the past and use it to create my new and different, “changed” future.

Suddenly, I found myself praying the prayer. And always, I looked for the lesson; not only in the tough times but the joyous ones as well. “What am I supposed to learn from this?” I asked myself. It seemed that the prayer and the question went hand in hand; that if I could figure out the lesson of the things I cannot change, I could find the courage to change what needed to change in the future.

Five years ago, my health took a turn for the worse. I’d begun ten years or so earlier, to have “mystery” symptoms. Muscle spasms would contort my left arm or hand into shapes I’d never dreamed an arm could take. Strange, unpredictable tremors began. The doctors I sought help from told me it was “just stress.” Vertigo ruled my life for some time, and my vision, never very good, suddenly became altogether unreliable. One day, I could read the fine print; the next, inexplicably, I could barely tell that it was there. My life had reached a point where it “should” have been stable, but suddenly I felt it starting to crumble. I had been working two jobs, and suddenly I could barely get out of bed. Some days, I just didn’t.

“Multiple Sclerosis” was the eventual diagnosis, and it devastated me. I’d known a good number of MS patients, and was terrified of the thought of myself in a wheelchair or, worse, bedridden. I wondered if I would end up blind, listening to books on tape and having my meals delivered to me.

Then I remembered the prayer, long dormant and having put it aside to make room for the fears. And the question reared its head again.

“What is the lesson in this?” I asked myself.

“Take better care of yourself,” was the answer. “And never forget to be grateful for what you DO have, and what you CAN do.”

So I have lived. Clearly, my Relapsing-Remitting form of MS is mild when compared to most of the other cases I have known. Sure, I have my bad days, but overall, I can’t complain. In my resolve to “beat” the disease, I made a lot of changes in my life, most noticeably the daily exercise. In some ways, I am stronger than I’ve ever been. Most people who learn of my MS are initially confused, as they think, like I once did, that it must be disabling.

Then there are days like the succession of them I’m confronting this month. For three days now, I haven’t been able to read. I don’t know if it’s the optic neuritis which accompanies the MS, or the migraine which seems to have taken hold with a vengeance. I’m not sure whether the pain is causing the blurred vision or the blurred vision is contributing to the pain. My legs are apparently filled with lead, as I can’t lift them when I walk. And Vertigo rules, again.

All of this began when my husband convinced me that I should try climbing a very long flight of concrete steps, three weeks ago. I knew I “could” do it; I wasn’t so sure I should; but I did. By the time I reached the top, I’d had to concentrate so hard on lifting my leg from one step to the next, that my left leg was still trying to climb on the platform at the top. Even worse was the trip back down the stairs, after which I walked into one person after another because my left leg simply would not stop, despite what my mind was trying to tell it.

I’m trying. I’m really trying again to figure out what the lesson of MS is. If I can’t figure it out, I’m going to have to try to pray it into submission.