The Power of One

When you think about how things come around, some times it’s the power of one that makes these things happen. It’s that lonely power of one that makes the change that is for the better. I experience it all the time. One voice. One vision. One goal. When they come together, amazing things happen. Sometimes all it takes is one person to move the earth and nothing stands in their way. Sometimes it takes one person to get a ball rolling and stop the monster destroying the peaceful valley below.

I watched things unfold in my heart. It was a turning point for me to delete Jess’ pictures from my Flickr account. Delete the Set. “Jess the Brave”? Ha! He laid in his bed for two days vomiting bile, then died of something surgery could have fixed. I read the captions to those pictures. One that got me was “We’re taking tons of pictures now that he won’t be with us much longer”. I sat there at my desk and cried. Why is it that we allow ourselves to truly live after being faced with death? Whether it is our death or the death of someone close to us, it moves us in ways that nothing else does. Death changes the soul. During those days after the prognosis, Dennis and I took at least a camera card of pictures of Jess a day. We filled up CDs by the month with nothing but pictures of him. We took pictures in the car, on the way to school, on the way to the pharmacy, out eating, in bed, brushing teeth, getting dressed for school. Jess became annoyed at us, and shortly after Christmas we slowed down. We wanted to remember everything. We wanted to be prepared to never see someone again. Someone who had been a part of our lives for only three years, but it seemed like since the beginning. The last picture was titled “The Last Photo. {Fuck you cancer!}” Jess was smiling. He was happy to be with us.

In the end we blamed ourselves. We made excuses for ourselves, then cursed our souls. How could we be so careless? How could I over look a detail like gallbladder disease? Steroids kill gallbladders and livers. I remember this from nursing school, I knew it from work. Check them for gall stones. Check them for liver disease. Yet I didn’t do it in my own home. What kind of a nurse am I? I thought about writing to the state to turn in my RN. For the first time in my career I truly felt incompetent. I had killed someone. I was a murderer.

I’ve come a long way since those days in the spring when I couldn’t go more than a few hours without crying. I don’t cry anymore unless I’m severely triggered. I’m often triggered, but not to the point of tears. I sometimes feel Jess’ presence here, but then I feel silly for thinking that. I often dream of a place above the stars where Jess is sitting in the grass, strumming a guitar, and singing to his dog who is there with him. Above an eternal light shines down on grassy meadows and below the purple and blue of the galaxy sparkles. Then I wake up.

The power of one has helped me go on. They have stood by me. They know who they are. And they know that I am deeply grateful for their support.

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