Grace and Grit

I just read Grace and Grit by Ken Wilber. It’s the story of his relationship with and death of wife Treya Wilber. She was diagnosed with cancer the week they were married. Lived five years with multiple surgeries, treatments and recurrences. The power of the book is that her writings about the relationship and her cancer experience are woven into his story. Both perspectives are available. The other power is the honesty. He writes about his fear and sadness, the ways that he coped, what he gave up, his resentment at giving up so much and powerfully he describes the lowest points when he hated her and she resented him. It’s all there. Then too he writes about how they climbed out of that, got help and the spiritual work for both of them in the last six months of her life.

What helped the most? Reading his take on the pain of caregivers. He describes caregivers as having two problems: the person they are caring for and the dismissal of their own needs and struggles. The tendency of caregivers to discount their own issues—“nothing equals cancer”—but that means it gets harder because the caregiver has whatever the problem in their life is and they have the impacted feelings and resentment. Not pretty but really helpful to see it described.

He also talks about the value of support groups and how much hate is expressed in a support group for caregivers. But what is powerful is that he sees that resentment and all that dark shadowy material as the consequence of the caregiver forgetting how to give love. As Wilber says, if there was no love they would have left already or just become cool. The anger and even hate is the sign that there is love and the caregiver has to find energy and a way to give love again.