For seven months I have run, walked, taken steps back and crawled. I have seen time crumble away behind me on an empty plain as I stubbornly kept putting one foot in front of the other with my gaze fixed on infinity. Sometimes it was sunny, sometimes it rained, and sometimes an icy wind cut through my thin clothes. But when the ground behind you is devoured by time there is no choice but to keep moving. I wasn’t alone on this barren plain, there were many others. Some were ahead of me, showing me that if they could get there, so could I. Some stood alongside the path and encouraged me when I thought I couldn’t go any further. Some were following me, looking for shelter from the wind in the lee of my body. Some fell, tripped, couldn’t get up, and were devoured by that endless and ever-growing abyss. That’s life, but it doesn’t make it any more pleasant to witness.
For seven months I saw, far away across that yet unknown plain, a little point of light. The end of the treatment, the first check-up, the gate to the rest of my life. What was behind that gate I couldn’t see, as I had a long road yet to travel. An abyss I would plunge into, or a beautiful green meadow full of flowers and sunshine. Those were the options.
And then, after seven months, I arrived at that gate. Covered in scratches, bruises and caked with mud. But stronger too, harder, and many life-lessons richer. The gate I thought would be massive and imposing - covered in gold and jewels, high and wide enough for a giant - was a simple wooden door.
Your scan is clean, congratulations, it couldn’t have gone any better. I’ll see you in three months" And so that wooded door flew open. No trumpets sounding, no angels singing, no green fields full of sunshine and happiness. Just another field with hills in the distance, and another door 3 months away.
So I took that first careful step through that door, and everything was the same. The feeling of the path on my calloused feet, the same hills that had made my legs so strong for the past months, the same sky - sometimes blue and sometimes grey. But no abyss, no end, no slow meandering road into the black nothing. And if I looked at those hills carefully they did appear just a little bit lower, the grass just a little greener. The Dutch summer isn’t too bad when you’re accustomed to the Alaskan one.
And with that realisation I conjured up a smile, and put one foot in front of the other. After all, I have a long way to go still, and the grass can only get greener.