I had a history professor once ask, "What exactly is the frontier?"
Our class came up with several muddled
and vague definitions. But in the end our professor gave us this: the frontier
is that thin strip of land running between civilization and wilderness. It is a
buffer between what is established and what is yet unknown.
For almost three years I have
lived on my own frontier of confusion, anger, exhaustion and grief, a narrow
land of unlivable territory spanning between life and death.
The minute I learned Carey’s
cancer had spread, I stepped away from all that I knew and out onto this barren
frontier, with nothing but wilderness as far as the mind could see. Forced here
by the chance ricochet of cancer’s bullet.
And here I have lived on that unrelenting
edge with my eye fixed on my family, unable to go back to what I knew, petrified
of staying for what it meant. There were days on the frontier where I watched
my son cross a brutal terrain of chemo treatments and radiation, braving his
way with dignity, calm, and even humor. And then, finally, when all hope of
survival here had failed, I watched him travel on without me, further into the
wilderness. Into the unknown.
My time on the frontier territory
is drawing to a close. I can’t stay here. There’s no point. I need to return to
my loved ones, to my new home, to all that is still familiar. But there will be days when I look back over my
shoulder to catch one more glimpse of Carey. To see if, by
chance, he passed that way again, even if for a second.
