Natural Health Help

Logan Smith has died. This not-quite 10 year old was in his mother’s arms when the kidney cancer he traveled with for 7 months ended his life. His family has spent these months knit tightly around him. His 2 brothers, his mom and her partner, all nested in and went with him as far as anyone possibly can, on the journey we will all take. Surrounding them is a larger community of family and friends and care providers that has been present with practical and energetic loving support. It has been at times unspeakably agonizing to stay present to the death journey of this child. Witnessing the love that was poured out in response to these demands, especially on and from his Mom, and on his closest family, and the relentless fortitude and attention they have paid to every moment with Logan, is a source of learning and inspiration that now reverberates through many lives.

One of Logan’s very smart brother’s wrote about him, and about his family’ grief like this: “…we all loved him so much every time I look at a picture of him i start to cry and say its not fair or come back but we know he wont we will probably be like this for a very long time.”

Exactly. We will be experiencing what we have been learning from Logan’s life, and from our responses to it, for a long time. It makes us bigger, more of who we are, more whole, when we bear with what is true.

Everyone who cared about this family couldn’t be with them physically as much as they were with each other; thanks to the world wide web, and to their efforts to stop in the moments and type out the often excruciating news, they were able to stay in touch with and share the grief and the growing with many more people. The gift of the updates that came to us through Logan’s tumortown blog is undeniable. As these folks- as we all- enter the next phase of life, with Logan physically gone, with the need to try to do something, no longer driving the day, a new set of opportunities emerges.

Cancer, and the death of a child, is not ‘normal’. Actually, both of these things are stunningly common; but when it ‘happens’ to us, we feel suddenly transported to somewhere else, somewhere not normal, not part of everyday life. Generally, in America, we don’t do much dying or disease or death; we compartmentalize these things, consider them strange and weird. Whenever possible we remove ourselves from all that. When it shows up anyway, we deal as best we can, do what we got to do. When the transition occurs, when death has come and gone and disease is no longer occupying us, we are eager to ‘get back to normal’. As Logan’s astute big brother knows, that doesn’t happen quick, and normal will never be the same again. And, that’s not only right but good.

Because Logan has accelerated, has made his journey before the rest of us, we get to move along on our own roads a little smarter, a little stronger. Thanks to the Smith family, I know more about myself in relation to my journey toward my death. I know more about how I want to live out my love for my children and my family and friends. I’m accepting this invitation to be alive while I am alive.

One of the things I want to do is remember, all the time, that no matter how ‘normal’ someone else looks on the outside, there is undoubtedly stuff that is unusual- brilliant, frightening, fascinating, startling, challenging- going on under their surface. I want to be curious and interested in what is actually going on in the moment I am in. I want to stay aware of my tendency to think I already know something and to look at every person, every episode of life with fresh, new born eyes. When I see a couple handsome Smith teenagers walking around town, I want to see who they are, including that they are young men wise from hard work, beautiful with grief and incredibly strong with love- and, whatever else is true.

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