this, too, shall pass

My ex-partner, Pete*, used to say this phrase all the time: This, too, shall pass. He’d be leaning against the kitchen counter, filing his nails, complaining about his job or the people at his job or how hard it was to find a new job. Then with a heavy sigh, he’d make the this-too-shall-pass pronouncement, brace himself for the imagined onslaught—the weight of the world on his young shoulders—and pour himself a drink.

At some point in our relationship, after I burned through my empathetic reserves, I started tuning out this frequent litany when I learned he wasn’t interested in solutions or alternative perspectives. Instead, it was part of a deeply ingrained pattern: venting about feeling overburdened and victimized, and then using that misery to justify addictions and complacency.

I’d already left the relationship by the time I could see all the ways he’d been my mirror. How much of my life had I wished would be over sooner, where I could press a fast-forward button and skip the messy, mundane middle? How much time had I spent complaining without taking action? How often had I drawn comfort from knowing the “bad” parts would eventually come to an end?

Like a long-suffering martyr, I’d approached life as something to survive, to get through, to beat myself against—used it as a means to an end (and to what end? To arrive where?), saw it as a ceaseless series of dramas and setbacks, obstacles and moving targets. Head bowed toward the wind, eyes seeing only storms. Someday, it would all be worth it. Someday, I would be happy.

You can guess where this is going. Someday never came. It never does.

One evening, not long after Moxy had received his diagnosis and I’d turned our lives upside down to give him the best possible care, Pete was delivering his usual monologue when something about hearing “this, too, shall pass” struck me, as though I was hearing it for the first time. As though it was a coin held in my hand that I could flip to see the other side, the one I’d never considered before. How had I missed it?

This, too, shall pass doesn’t apply only to the negative experiences in life; it equally applies to the positive. Everything is passing. Everything is impermanent. And whatever way I approached life’s downs was the way I approached it all, including the ups. Which meant if I was wishing to get through the hard period of Mox being sick, I was also wishing to speed through the good days, the quiet moments and peaceful mornings, right up to the point where he’d no longer be sick (which could only mean his end). 

It helped explain why I was so painfully aware of Mox’s every move, why the tender scenes with him were hitting me harder, why the tears kept coming even when nothing was wrong, why I was thoroughly soaked in nostalgia and melancholic reverie, even when he was right there in front of me, pawing at my leg to play and throw his “squirrely squirrel.” 

There was no respite. No going back to a false security or easy comfort. Smoke through the keyhole, sand through the fingers, water through the sieve—there was nothing to hold on to.

Everywhere I looked I saw the end. On some level, Moxy was already gone.

Still, I tried. I did my best to hold both sides of the truism simultaneously, to see what I’d missed before and come closer to presence. On rare occasions I could lower myself into a moment like it was a steaming body of water and feel my body unfurl. It was then the moments would stretch a little further, a little wider, like salt water taffy, and I’d manage to breathe a little easier.

I’d never hear “this, too, shall pass” the same way again. 

When I crumbled to the kitchen floor and screamed in frustration after four. Straight. Hours. Of trying every trick, every method, every conceivable measure I could think of to get Mox to take his 100% nonnegotiable medication—the first of four daily doses.

This, too…

When I’d take Mox outside each day for his morning constitutional and watch as he’d jauntily trot from spot to spot ahead of me, the early light glinting off his white fur and creating a sort of hazy glow around him.

This, too…

When I sat in the BluePearl Pet Hospital’s ER waiting area for the umpteenth time, cold and scared shitless and jittery, holding my breath for what this day’s results would bring and what it would mean for my baby.

This, too…

When I’d come home from work and Mox would be waiting right by the door to greet me, bouncing on his hind legs and karate-chopping the backs of my knees, then covering my entire face with eager kisses like he hadn’t seen me in a year, and it would be the only time I’d smile all day.

This, too…

When I held him tightly in my arms before he went into open-heart surgery, all the memories of what brought us here, of our life together, pressing down on us, condensed into this one bright moment in the vast sea of eternity, fervent hope and heart-sickening fear commingling, wanting everything to just stop, just let us stay here, suspended on the razor edge, all the while knowing—knowing they were coming any second to take him from me, knowing I’d have to let go, knowing I’d never be ready and knowing there would never, ever be enough time I could spend with him, not even if I lived longer than forever. 

This, too. This, too. This, too.

I won’t get these moments back. Yours won’t come back, either. But I would relive every single one again, from the hard to the soft, if it meant we would have more time. And even knowing what I know now, I would still choose Moxy, over and over; I would still choose to have him in my life, rather than the alternative. I’d choose to take everything—which is what I got. A full range of experience, and a sweeping pendulum atop it. 

 If you’re caught in the dread spiral, the lethal limbo of wanting the tension to stop and wanting to hold on, wanting to be done and wanting to keep going, wanting to hide under the covers and wanting to know for sure what’s ahead, remember it’s all the same. This is it. This is the deal we’ve struck. Learning how to find the beauty in our terror, and the terror in our beauty. Learning how to hold it all.  

Maybe there—only there—is it possible to find the one thing that doesn’t pass.

Lessons from Darkness

“I’m afraid of darkness, and the hole in it;

and I see it sometime of every day!”

– Martin Luther, in Luther

Everything you love will perish.

Try saying this to yourself

at breakfast, watching the amber-colored tea

swirl in the teapot. Try it on the tree, the clouds, the dog

asleep under the table, the sparrow taking a bath

in the neighbor’s gutter. A magician’s act: Presto! 

On a morning you feel open enough to embrace it

imagine it gone. Then pack the child’s lunch: smooth the thick

peanut butter, the jeweled raspberry preserves,

over the bread. Tell yourself the world

must go on forever. This is why

you feed her, imagining the day—orderly—

unfolding, imagining what you teach her

is true. Is something she will use. This is why, later, you will go out

into the garden, among the calendula, rosemary, hibiscus,

run your finger along the trunk of hawthorn

as though it were the body 

of a lover, thinking of the child

on the steps of the schoolyard, eating her sandwich. Thinking nothing, 

transparent air, where her hands are.

– Anita Barrows 

*Names have been changed to respect privacy. 

Learn how to hold it all. Together.