What we talk about when we talk about entitlement. 

We’re not entitled to a healthy life.

When my mother was diagnosed with brain cancer, I sat alone in a family room at the hospital and wondered aloud why this was happening to my family. Why my mother? Why my family? Inevitably, I asked: why me?

The same thing happened when my wife was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder while we were still dating. What was once my young, athletic girlfriend became a dependent, tired woman who was forced to spend too many days on her parent’s couch. Why her? Why did this happen to us? Why me?

I’m uncertain where these questions originally came from—I mean, somewhere down the road I had to have heard someone else say them. Maybe my folks said it when my brother was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Or maybe I heard it on the television, or in a book. It is, after all, a pretty common question people ask when faced with tragedy, loss, or grief.

Why me? Why did this have to happen to me?

I have been thinking a lot about this lately, especially as my wife’s health begins to mend and we’re afforded the time to look back and reflect on the last several years. Throughout her diagnosis and treatment, our whole family was struggling, and, to be frank, quite angry.

But why were we angry? Well, yes, we were angry because she was now living with a terrible, terrible burden, one that was difficult to watch, let alone live with. But the honest to God truth was that she had this burden. She had an autoimmune disease, whether we liked it or not. My mother had brain cancer. There was nothing we could do about it. These were realities. Unexpected? Yes, but realities all the same.

It’s funny—I don’t ever remember being promised good health for my loved ones or me. I don’t remember ever being told that in my life, everything would be fine, including my health. Neither does my wife, or my mother. And that’s because we’ve never been given that promise.

So this question of ‘why me?’ is really a matter of entitlement, right? I feel entitled to good health. I feel entitled to a life without struggle, without pain, without hardship because, well, it’s me. I shouldn’t have to deal with this. My wife shouldn’t have to deal with this. My mother and my family should not have to deal with this.

But says who?

Who ever said that was the case? No one. I’ve never been told that, so when I take that question away because I realize it holds no significance for me, I’m just left with this pain, with having to watch the women I love most struggle and suffer and carry a burden I cannot help them with, no matter how hard I try. And believe me, I try.

I suspect that this question was my way of putting off the reality and gravity of each situation. By asking ‘why me?’ ‘why us?’ I was ignoring reality. I wasn’t accepting the fact that here my wife was, in yet another hospital, sick. I was living somewhere in between what once was, and what was to come, and that felt more comfortable than saying: okay, here it is, this is real, now what? I was delaying grief, which, in turn, delayed my ability to help my wife and mother.

What really gets me about this question, however, beyond the notion that I subconsciously believe I’m above these struggles, is this: if it’s not me, then it’s someone else. Let someone else deal with it. My wife and I should not have to deal with this, not now, not ever, so someone else should. Now, I may not really believe that (I don’t), but that’s what the question is asking, isn’t it?

Why me? Why not someone else?

When I take my blinders off, when I open my eyes, I realize that we aren’t alone. When my mother was admitted into the hospital with three tumors on her brain, there were hundreds of people dealing with the effects of cancer in that very hospital that night, patients and families. There are millions of people struggling with autoimmune problems on a day-to-day basis.

So the better question is: why not me? Why shouldn’t we, too, have to struggle with illness?

Well, we shouldn’t. No one should, but that’s not our reality, and my wife and mother aren’t entitled to good health.

I’ve been working on accepting that lately. I’ve been working on acknowledging the fact that my life is my life: my mother is a cancer thriver and deals with life-changing effects from a devastating treatment. My wife has a muscle disorder and some days really, truly suck. That is my life, and I have to learn to be okay with that. Because when I do, I can stop asking ‘why me?’ and start to ask: what can I do? What can I do to make this better? How can we live our life with this hurdle in a way that is purposeful, fulfilling, and splendid?

That’s what matters in the end, isn’t it? Life. How we live life, and what we did with our time here on earth. In a world without sickness, my wife and I would still have sought a life of love and happiness, filled with friends and family, good coffee and service to others. The same is still true now; we just have to climb a few more hurdles to get there. We just have to take a few more breaks to let my wife’s body heal. But we’ll get there, and when we do, it’ll be because we fought for it, every day, not because it was owed to us.

(This piece was originally published by ReadtheSpirit at www.wearecaregivers.com)