andybarwick

Be Strong. Take Heart.

Sand and Stone


I haven't written in a very long time.  I have been going through something so deeply personal that it has taken all of my strength and at times, my will to live.  I'm not saying this out of the need for pity and sympathy but as a cry for help in the most honest and genuine way I can think of possible.

Throughout my life, I have always had this picture of how I wanted my life to be.  A beautiful and caring wife, wonderful kids with kind hearts and for me to be someone more than the average person that you meet on the street.  Someone that when you meet, you instantly have been affected by them.  The theory of celestial mechanics teaches us that when two objects collide, they can never be the same.  The object paths have forever more been changed.

I have always felt that I had some effect on people but no more than the average person.  After going through this illness for the past five years, I have become someone that has been more affected by others it seems than I have on other people.  Some would argue that point and say it is the opposite but that is just how I have felt.  I don't feel that there is ever a person that I meet, talk with briefly through email or really interact with that isn't changed by that collision or interaction.  They may not feel it instantly but I feel it almost every time immediately.

Over the past five years, I have tried to find the best in things throughout the worst experiences of my life.  It has been tough going from having the ideal life you always pictured since a child and then watching that life fall apart as if most of it never happened.  I can tell a sad tale of woe but that isn't what I'm about, you should know that by now.  I have always thanked God for the ground or asked him what my purpose is in this suffering, this breaking and remolding of my life.  Every time things started to make sense, I would be completely broken again.  I think the big problem with being broken is that you try to piece your old life back together with glue or whatever will hold it together.  I have learned the hard way that you can never piece back together things that have been broken by this life.  They have been broken for a reason.  The big question is, at what point will the breaking cease and you are remade into something better, something more useful to humankind.

I won't share what deeply personal new breaking has occurred, but I will say that it is far more than I could have ever prepared myself for and has torn my heart, my soul and even my physical being to shreds. There is no picking up the pieces from the series of events that lead up to this.  There is no changing the past, doing more or trying to fix this broken man.  Because now, than man and everything he believed to be true have been ground to dust.  I won't say that I have lost everything because every time I say that I always find another cliff to blindly fall from.  I want to at some point thank God for the ground, for breaking my fall, for breaking me into something more useable to this world, but I fear that hasn't happened yet.

So I try and move forward.  Every hour is a different emotion and a flood of memories from every face, every sound every word I read.  The tears are slowing down some.  The anger still comes in waves.  I just have to believe that things will somehow get better.  Hour by painful hour, I will myself past my physical state into how I can help others.  Not how I can help myself.  I have no answers for that and I have been buried under that burden for years and it has cost me more than I could have imagined.  The balance has always gone back and forth to trying to do the best for my family and at the same time trying to find a way to get better.  I have failed at both.  So now that I have officially failed, I have to move forward and make sure that my family has the best life they can, I remain balanced in my search for answers, but mainly I realize that I cannot do this alone anymore.

I have always been hesitant and head strong when it comes to asking others for help.  People have always offered supportive, financial and all kinds of help.  I've taken what I have always thought was needed for my family but never saw the true effect my life was having on the one that I loved most dear.  Somewhere along the way, I lost her.  I lost her to this disease, my constant search for answers and being consumed by pain, suffering and my inability to step out of my box to help those closest to me trying to endure me.

So I am listening God, universe, friends and anyone that has been involved throughout my life.  You have my attention.  I'm sorry that I have been so stubborn in my approach to life, but this is new to me too and I don't want to suffer and be in this spotlight.  I never have wanted it.  I have tried my best and failed in so many areas.  And now, I am falling off of another cliff again with no ground in site and darkness surrounding me.  But I haven't given up.  I've come close, too close several times in the past weeks to giving into an easy out, a selfish end.  But I have to fight for my girls.  They deserve better and they deserve my wisdom and my insights on life that no other person will be able to teach them.  They are wonderfully teachable and patient, through thick and thin.  I couldn't ask for better children.  I would say that they deserve so much more in life, but I have learned that deserve has nothing to do with this life.  I've seen the sweetest souls suffer relentlessly and the coldest hearts be rewarded with all of their earthly desires.

I believe that, although broken, my heart is still pure in what it seeks.  I believe that even if my pursuit of helping others and making this a better world is never finished in my lifetime others may just catch on and follow.  I know that there is a lot of healing that needs to happen and I can only do my best to make that happen.  What I will ask from all of those friends and supporters from around this world is to please ask for answers to what this journey is all about.  Ask that I may given strength and knowledge to continue on and fight for my children and all those that cannot fight for themselves.  Help my voice carry further by asking others to join in this fight not just for me and my life, but for the lives of all of those suffering silently every day.  I need a lighted path at my feet showing me a better way.  I need God's light and the light of all of those connected to me to help lift this burden from my shoulders so that I may stand for longer periods and do what is shown for me to do.

I have seen so many things and there are so many things that I know need to be done.  But I need help in every way possible to move forward and promote life where there is death.  To dismantle sorrow where there is suffering and to share a collective story of those that have helped change my life for the better.  I'm bracing for the next impact.  I just hope that there is no more sand but instead  stone, no more suffering without answers and that the light of hope and life shine through brighter than ever.  You don't have to ask what to do for me or for others in need, just do what comes to your heart.  Will you join me and renew this fight?
Andy BarwickComment