Good Wife

“When Treya was first ill, I thought I could make things all better by being in charge, by saying the right things, by helping choose medical treatments, and so on. Those were all helpful, but beside the point. She would get some particularly bad news—say a new metastasis—and she would begin crying, and I would immediately start in with things like, “Look, it’s not certain yet; we need more tests; there’s no evidence that this will change your treatments anyway,” and so on. That was not what Treya needed. What she needed was simply for me to cry with her, and so I did; to feel her feelings; and thus to help dissipate them, or soak them up…

The crucial point, as I began to see it, is simply to be present with the person, and not be afraid of their fear, or their pain, or their anger; to just let whatever comes up come up; and most of all, to not try to get rid of these painful feelings by trying to help the person, by trying to make the person “feel better” or “talk them out” of their worries. In my case, this “helping” attitude only happened when I didn’t want to deal with Treya’s feelings or with mine; I didn’t want to relate to them in a simple and direct and uncomplicated way; I wanted them to go away. I did not want to be a sponge, I wanted to be AN ACHIEVER, and make the situation all better. I did not want to acknowledge my helplessness in the face of the unknown.

I was as afraid as Treya. Just being a sponge, you see, tends to make you feel helpless and useless, because you aren’t doing something, you’re just being there, doing nothing (or so it seems). And this is what so many people find so difficult to learn. I know I did. It took me almost a year to stop trying to fix things or make them better, and to just be with Treya when it hurts. I think this is why “nobody is interested in chronic,” because you can’t do anything about chronic, you can only be there. And so when people think they are supposed to do something to help you, and find out that doing is of no help, they’re at a loss. What can I do? Nothing, just be there. . . .

When people ask me what I do, and I’m in no mood to chitchat, I usually say, “I’m a Japanese wife,” which totally confuses them. The point is that, as a support person, you are supposed to be silent and simply do as your spouse wills—you’re supposed to be a good “wifey.” Men find this particularly tough; I did, anyway. It took me, I don’t know, maybe two years before I stopped resenting the fact that in any argument we had or decision we made, Treya had the trump card: “But I have cancer.” Treya, in other words, would almost always get her way, and I was reduced to simply going along like the good little wife.

I don’t mind this so much anymore. For one thing, I don’t just automatically “go along” with all Treya’s decisions, particularly when I think they reflect bad judgment. Previously, I would tend to go along with her because she seemed almost desperately to need me to support her decisions, even if it meant lying about how I really felt. The way we work it now is that if Treya is making an important decision on, say, whether to try a new treatment, I give her my opinion as strongly as I can state it, even if I disagree with her, right up to the point that she finally decides what to do. From that point on, I agree with her, and get behind her, and support her in her choice as best I can. It’s no longer my job to heckle her, or cast doubts on her choice. She has enough problems without having to constantly doubt her own course of action. . . .

Some place deep inside I had made a fundamental choice to stay with this woman through thick and thin, no matter what, forever; to see her through this process come what may. But somewhere during the second year of the ordeal, I forgot about this choice, even though it was a choice I was still making, obviously, or I would have left. I was displaying bad faith; I was being inauthentic; I wasn’t real. In my bad faith I had forgotten about my own choice, and therefore almost immediately fell into an attitude of blame, and consequently self-pity. Somehow, this all became very clear to me. . . .

It is not always easy for me to affirm this choice, or my choices in general. It doesn’t automatically make the situation any better. I think of it like volunteering to go into combat and then getting shot. I might have freely chosen to go into combat, but I did not choose to get shot. I feel a little bit wounded, and I’m not happy about that; but I freely volunteered for the assignment—it was my choice—and I would freely volunteer again, knowing full well what it entails. So each day I reaffirm my choice. Each day I choose once again. This stops blame from piling up, and slows the accumulation of pity or guilt. It’s a simple point, but actually applying even the simplest points in real life is usually difficult. . . .

In addition to slowly getting back into writing, I have also returned to meditation, the whole point of which is really just to learn how to die (to die to the separate-self sense, or ego), and Treya’s facing a potentially lethal disease is an extraordinary spur to meditative awareness. The sages say that if you maintain this choiceless awareness, this bare witnessing, moment to moment, then death is just a simple moment like any other, and you relate to it in a very simple and direct way. You don’t recoil from death or grasp at life, since fundamentally they are both just simple experiences that pass...

Treya’s cancer is a constant reminder that death is a great letting go, but you needn’t wait for actual physical death to profoundly let go of your own grasping and clinging in this moment, and this moment, and this. And finally, to bring this all back home, the mystics maintain that the type of action that one performs in this world, if one lives by choiceless awareness, is an action devoid of ego or devoid of self-centeredness. If you are going to die to (or transcend) the separate-self sense, then you have to die to self-centered and self-serving actions. In other words, you have to perform what the mystics call selfless service.

You have to serve others, without thought of self or hope for praise; you simply love and serve—as Mother Teresa says, “Love until it hurts.” In other words, you become a good wife. In other words, here I am, cooking dinner and washing dishes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still far from Mother Teresa status, but I increasingly see my support-person activity as being a major part of selfless service and therefore of my own spiritual growth, a type of meditation in action, a type of compassion. Nor does this mean that I have perfected this art; I still bitch and moan, I still get angry, I still blame circumstances; and Treya and I still half-kid (half-not) about holding hands, jumping off the bridge, and putting an end to this whole joke. And all in all, I’d rather be writing.

Now, as a reward for reading through this long letter, and for all you other good wives out there, I’m giving out my world-famous recipe for vegetarian chili:

2–3 cans dark red kidney beans (drained)
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 onions, chopped
2 green peppers, chopped
2–3 T olive oil
1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes
3–4 cloves garlic
3–4 T chili powder
1–2 T cumin
2–3 T fresh parsley
2–3 T oregano
1 can beer
1 cup cashews
½ cup raisins (optional)

Heat oil in large pot; sauté onions until clear, then add celery, green pepper, and garlic; cook for 5 minutes or so. Add tomatoes (with juice; break the tomatoes into small chunks) and kidney beans; reduce to simmer. Add chili powder, cumin, parsley, oregano, beer, cashews, and raisins (opt.). Simmer as long as you want. Garnish with fresh parsley or grated cheddar cheese.

I can’t remember if beer was part of my original recipe or I just dropped my beer in it once when I was cooking it; in any event, the beer is essential. Also, “T” does mean tablespoon, not teaspoon; the whole secret of this chili is in the large amounts of herbs. À votre santé. Please eat it in good health.
Love, Ken”

~ Excerpted from Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber by Ken Wilber