Martial arts and fitness have been my passion now for 40 years. And when I say, “passion,” I don’t mean the same kind of feeling someone gets when they find a new stamp to add to their collection. That’s not a slight to stamp collectors… Anyway, I started running several days a week when I was a sophomore in high school mainly because I was tired of being chubby. Dad let us hang a punching bag in the garage and we had the famous Weider weight set; remember? The one with the cheap little plastic weights filled with sand? I enjoyed the way it may me feel and how it gave me confidence. Lifting weights and punching a bag were great outlets for teenage angst. Running became an escape. It was awesome.
I used to love running in the desert in Phoenix, in mountains of Great Falls, Montana, and right here at the Cincinnati Nature Center. My martial arts training included thunderous roundhouse kicks against a heavy bag and lots of falls…high falls. When I held demonstrations on base, I used to have five or six of my students pile up and I’d do a running, flying rollout over them. It was a crowd pleaser. I kick-boxed a lot and took a lot of hard hits from head to waist but I was able to blow it off and run the next day. Some times when I was an instructor at the NCO Academy, I’d go for runs with our class wearing combat boots…not because I had to, but because ego was a terrible thing to waste. Good times.
But like the checkout isle at the grocery store, those things add up although you can’t see it on any screen. It’s usually a slow, undetectable process; a nagging pain in your joints that comes and goes or tendons that stop healing at the same rate they once did. The first thing I noticed was considerable knee pain in the morning. I also realized that it took my shoulder several days to calm down after taking a lot of falls in our classes; the outcome of an injury years earlier. But my nemesis has been my left hip which began to bother me seven years ago. I put it off when Terri was diagnosed with cancer and I have lived with it ever since. For a while, I thought I could just push through it but each year the limp becomes a bit more prominent and I’ve lost considerable mobility. The surgeon said I’d know when it was time for a total hip replacement. “You won’t see me for a long time, buddy," my defiant mental middle finger raised high. I was wrong. I’ve decided to wave the white flag this year and get the damn surgery.
There is something very powerful in refusing to listen to your body when it’s trying to tell you something, kind of like a mind over matter thing. It reminds me of an episode of Jerry Seinfeld when Kramer tested out a new car with a salesman and they just kept driving until the gas ran out, celebrating every time they decided not to stop. Terri used to do the same thing and it drove me crazy. She’d drive on E for miles: “Oh, I’ve got plenty of gas” she’d say in her ever-present, whimsical fashion. Even though it made me furious, I enjoyed a certain level of satisfaction the two or three times I had to bring her gas after she stalled out on the road. The fact that she had to admit that I was right was not a deterrent; she drove with half a tank most of the time. That was her way; she didn’t like to give up.
Yesterday was the third anniversary of her passing. She fought so hard for so long against an adversary that simply had more ammunition than she did. Her bravery never ceases to inspire me. We both knew that ovarian cancer had terrible odds, but she never gave up. As long as there as another day, there was always another reason to hope. But there comes a time when there is simply no more gas in the tank. You can’t drive on E forever. That moment of realization for her came a week after she was home from a month’s stay in the hospital. Faced with the possibility being on a feeding tube that may have allowed her six more months of life, she decided that her fight was over. That last bit is important; she decided. She never gave up.
Giving in is not giving up, not remotely. It just means that you are looking thoughtfully at your situation and figuring out the best way to move forward. Some times, that means a tactical retreat so that you can regroup. That’s what Terri did; she made a tactical retreat to the Father. He’s got an army nobody wants to face. If you’re looking for stronghold, that’s the place to go.
Watching the two women in my life go through this has impacted me in ways I can’t really put on paper except to say, if cancer were a man, I’d hunt his ass down and cut him to pieces until there was nothing left but a greasy little spot. I know it sounds a bit egoistical and most certainly a little violent but that’s how I feel. The guttural, unedited version of my anger and frustration towards a silent culprit whose only weakness seems to be a good diet and staying away from things like cigarettes and lead. The hard part is realizing this is not a physical battle, but a spiritual one.
And where is God in all this? I ask Him all the time. There’s no burning bush with Charlton Heston’s commanding voice like the one in the movie, The Ten Commandments. Instead, God speaks through Scripture. The story on my mind these days is Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane when he pleaded with God to “take the cup,” because he knew what he was about to face. Then come the words that we all struggle with: “…yet not my will but yours be done.” Jesus didn’t give up; he merely gave in to his fate and made the most famous tactical retreat in history. That’s what we’re asked to do…to have faith beyond words on paper. And to let God hunt cancer down in his own way.
Give in to the idea that life comes from a place far greater than a few atoms that got together, had party and created…everything. Give in to the realization that you can plan as much as you want, but each day you’re on this side of the dirt is a blessing…and another reason for hope.
Dave Magliano
Tatsu Dojo
Jissenkan Budo
Dojo Cho
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