Books: Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler (Part 1)

Guys, guess what! I finished another book!

Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler

Until this point, I've avoided reading cancer books because I am far too much of a sarcastic jackass to be able to take their approach seriously. See, I know my condition is serious, but if I can't make fun of it, what can I do?

My therapist recommended this book to me, and because I absolutely judge books by their covers, the title drew me in immediately. So, if you are as curious as I was as soon as I saw the title, here is the blurb from Amazon:

Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son.

Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.

The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with “a surge of determination.” Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you “can’t do” and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before.

Frank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.

With everything that has happened in the last four months, I have tried so hard not to think about dying, and here I sat, reading this book in two days, and thinking about my own mortality so much more than I ever thought I'd be prepared to think about my own mortality.

See, we have all said or thought about the idea that we could be hit by a bus tomorrow, right? For most people, that's as much examination of their own mortality as they have time or inclination to do. The thing is, for the vast majority of people, that bus is abstract. It's the idea of a bus. A shadow of a bus. A vague daydream of a bus.

When we say that we could be hit by a bus tomorrow, we don't actually believe it, and we don't even live on the bus line, and we have a car, and we could call an Uber, and we work from home, and we have no reason to ever leave the house.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at a bus right now. I don't know how far away it is, I don't know how fast it is going, I don't know if it is even able to swerve. For me, the bus is not abstract. It is real, and I am staring it down.

Reading this book forced me to look at the bus. Really look at it. That bus is holding a lot right now.

In the preface, Bowler says,

"One moment I was a regular person with regular problems. And the next, I was someone with cancer. Before my mind could apprehend it, it was there—swelling to take up every space my imagination could touch. A new and unwanted reality. There was a before, and now there was an after" (Bowler xiv-xv; emphasis added).

Before diagnosis day, I would have said that the life that I have with The Husband was ordinary. We do the things that we do, no big deal. But if I look at it from the outside, our life together has been truly extraordinary. We have road-tripped all over the country, had spontaneous adventures, and embraced the unexpected in so many ways.

I have been stuck grieving my before life because there is not enough room for the extraordinary anymore. I can't skydive (I assume the rockstar neurosurgeon wouldn't approve). I don't have the stamina to go for a multiple-hour hike and multi-day camping trip. Frankly, I am far too anxious to try the things I used to enjoy trying for the sheer fact that they scared me. I feel like there is no more room to be Before Melissa anymore.

Before, The Husband took me on a short helicopter ride at the county fair because it was reasonably priced and I am terrified of helicopters and I occasionally enjoy doing things that frighten me. I cried and/or hyperventilated because helicopters are terrifying, and I loved every minute of it.

Before, The Husband took me zip-lining even though I am afraid of heights and in my mind, the zip-line is always thisclose to dropping me to my ungraceful and messy death at the bottom of the forest floor. But I got on that zip-line, and cried as my knees shook. I watched everyone else go in front of me while I stood there and cried, snot bubbles and everything. The guide had to hook up and push me to get me to go, and I cried the whole way. And suddenly, I realized that zip-lining is amazing! It feels like flying. But also, I was crying because I was scared to death, and sometimes, scaring yourself to death makes you feel alive.

Before, I got The Husband skydiving tickets for Christmas one year even though I am afraid of heights, afraid of flying, and afraid of falling. I didn't eat or drink anything the night before because I was worried about puking on the guy who was my tandem guide. The next morning, we got on the plane, and I thought maybe I would pass out. The plane climbed to 13,500 feet, and they opened the door. I had already signed the waiver that basically said skydiving is stupid and you might die and you can't sue us, so it was too late to back out, right? The tandem guide pushed me toward the open door and yelled in my ear that we would go on the count of three: "One! Two!" That sneaky bastard pushed me out the door! I screamed. I blacked out. I cried. The photos show a giant grin on my face. But you better believe that I was terrified. But by the time we landed on the ground, I was ready to go again, so we did! And it was just as scary as the first time!

I have so many before stories.

What after stories will I have to tell?