When lightning strikes twice

on beating the odds when it is all odds

“Contrary to popular misconception, lightning often strikes the same place twice. Certain conditions are just ripe for a bolt of electricity to come zapping down; and a lightning strike is powerful enough to do a lot of damage wherever it hits.”

Lightning Often Strikes Twice, originally published by NASA in 2005

I am remarkably resilient. I chalk this up to several factors, including but not limited to the following: living my entire life in a place where the sun has probably fully set by 4:00PM, coming from a long line of people who came from a long line of people who lived where the sun definitely fully set by 4:00PM, and one time I ate one of those grow-your-own dinosaur pills from Dollar Tree just to see what would happen and it’s been like 6 years and nothing has happened yet. I’m just saying.

But seriously, I have been in and out of some situations. My experience living with PTSD for decades is a sharpened blade - I know how to recognize problems. I know how to approach and gentle them. And if I can’t, I know how to get answers from the ones who can. This is my strength. I am the proverbial tunnel boring machine here to get us out of the cracked earth and back on the surface.

You can build your entire life around this act of martyrdom that no one assigned to you. Remember the sharpened blade I mentioned above? Twist it in your own back now. There are some things that are just too tender.

I can’t find any statistics about a father and son having cancer at the same time. Truthfully, I haven’t looked that hard. The statistic I have for you is that it is happening to my family right now.

In the sphere of caring for my dad and his cancer, I had to become a version of myself that could survive without him if I needed to. Selfishly, and naively, this was a version of myself I never let actualize. But the bubble was popped.

I’m writing about these tender things because that is what I do as a writer and as a Hannah, and as a sister and as a daughter. I want you to read this and not feel like I am a victim of my circumstances, or that we are doomed, or pitiful or whatever. It is really something how life can take root in these horrific, unfair, mysterious, painful ways and we are tasked with the job of molding it into something worth keeping alive.

My brother and I never fought in our childhood. “Thick as thieves,” our mom would say through gritted teeth. And she was right. We had our own language. As I grew up, I brought him with me everywhere, like Paris Hilton carrying her chihuahua in her purse. Actually, I probably genuinely carried him in a bag at some point. As a bit!

this is the photo i use as his contact image in my phone

The mind is so funny. Even though we are grown, it is impossible for me to not view him as a child when times are rancid like this. I wish I could reach through time and grab him. I would shake him by his shoulders and say, “Let's just stay here for awhile! The rest of it can wait!”

I know there is no way to predict the future. I know that without such trials, there can be no virtue.

There is a verse from Daniel that is stuck in my head constantly lately:

You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

And yes, I have, haven’t I?

H