Welcome world to our present from two very human psychologists who are deeply in love and determined to realize and share all they can with you before their inspired collaboration is terminated by cancer.
This blog is multidimensional. It will inspire you to wholly appreciate the wonderful opportunities life offers us every day, understand that shifts happen, and manage crisis as best as possible. You will be with us as we travel throughout the world to fully experience its wonders, and look for inspiration, laughter, beauty, meaning and more in our time together. You will learn about the effect of an incurable illness on relationships, and the effect of relationships on an incurable illness. You will experience love’s power and frailties, laugh and learn with us, and understand yourself, your relationships, humanity and the universe a little better. So we begin our blog, ready to go wherever mind, body and spirit will take us.
Suzanne and I were married two years and three months ago. A few days before our wedding we found out I had prostate cancer. Before we were together we had independently concluded that we would never find an absolute soul mate, and that Judy Collins was right when she sang that its only “loves illusions” that we recall. And then, as two colleagues taking a break from a somewhat mundane professional convention at an upstate NY hotel, we walked up a path together to a waterfall in the woods. Then entirely unexpectedly we independently and simultaneously experienced what can only be described as a truly unique “3-D” mystical experience that had no rational explanation, revealing that if you take the time to see what’s around you the universe is more than ready to share its miraculous beauty and secrets.
As we stood before the waterfall, seeing our normal 2D world miraculously transform in every sense, revealing depths, colors, and a connection with the universe that can only be described as 3D, I thought how others who may have had a similar experience may have reacted. I recalled how Leonardo Da Vinci first noted that when a person steps into a stream, the whirlpools that the step creates always travel in a clockwise direction (on the Northern hemisphere). I began to understand why none of the billions of people who lived before him had noticed what Da Vinci saw when he stepped in the stream, although it was there for everyone to see. Suzanne and I shared very few words about our mutual 3D experience, but knew it was real and could not be explained by 20th century science. After that day, every Monday morning Suzanne emailed me a photo of some wonder the Hubel telescope had just discovered in the universe. More than a year passed before we dated. A few months later we returned to the waterfall where I asked her to marry.
The theme for our wedding ceremony in Key Biscayne Florida centered on the four elements and on an ancient Greek story that at one time all human beings were amazingly happy and complete round beings who would unceasingly bounce throughout the day around Olympia, the home of the Greek Gods. After many warnings to calm their unfettered joy, but unable to do so, each complete human being was roughly cut in half and thrown down to earth. The story continues that ever since that time, each of the two halves of every original complete human being has been searching for it one true soul mate so that together, they may be complete again. Our wedding ceremony in New York a few days later was attended by over 100 psychologists, who were also celebrating my new elected position as President of the New York State Psychological Association.
The cancer treatments began soon after our honeymoon. First the prostatectomy, and when that didn’t work, hormone treatments, followed by 40 days of radiation, followed by three months of shots Suzanne would administer in my stomach twice a day to deal with potential complications, followed by a double bypass operation, followed by treatments for diabetes, high blood pressure, and more. Suzanne was there every step, every day. Each time we met with a new doctor or nurse she would plead with them. “It took us a lifetime to find each other. We are newlyweds. Please do what you can.” And then, the news that the cancer had spread to my bones and from this point all known treatments could probably only slow the inevitable down. From then on, mortality became an inescapable reality. I was reminded that I was in the hands of the best doctors available, who might be able to keep the cancer at bay for so long that I should be more concerned of dying of complications from treatment interventions instead. Friends who tried to be helpful would suggest “Don’t worry. There’s no guarantee you will die from cancer. You could be hit by a bus first.” It was time for Suzanne and I to make choices. Do we continue our lives as before? What’s really important to us? Should we be bitter? What kind of universe is this? What did our field and seasoned experience as psychologists provide that may be useful? How will we choose to live from this time forward? The decisions we made is shared in the next blog.
~ Richard
PAY IT FORWARD — WHY WE WRITE
In early 2010, my husband and I agreed to participate in brief couples therapy designed to research the impact of advanced prostate cancer on intimacy and relationships. We agreed for several reasons. We were grateful for Richard’s care and we wanted to give back to Memorial Sloan Kettering and to scientific research in general. As psychologists, we particularly valued the opportunity to be treated not just in the body but in mind and spirit. Those sessions were unexpectedly deeply moving with a place to cry, laugh, and appreciate the preciousness of every moment of life and the amazing power of our love for each other. Our therapist Talia was struck by our connection and gave us a gift when she suggested that we write about our experience, thus providing us with one of the legacies we sought.
That is the reason that I write these words. As much as I value the transformative power of social media and collective wisdom, I am private and the idea of expressing my deepest core to an online community of unknown readers propels me to cross a new boundary, albeit an uncomfortable one! For the past several weeks, as Richard and I hold each other at night, whispering about what it would be like if we only have a thousand more days together, we say we need to write. We need to share our experience and find words for the unspeakable, the unspoken, and the poetry of being alive and faced with advancing mortality.
Like everyone’s story, ours is unique. I was alone for years before meeting Richard and marrying him two and a half years ago. In my mid fifties, I found the love I had looked for my whole life but days before we married Richard was diagnosed with cancer. We had no idea at the time how much that diagnosis would accompany us on our journey until death do us part – and beyond.
~ Suzanne
