X’s protocol was to last only five months. It was a program designed to rid the body of disease in one intensive effort. Of course, during this time, many decisions had to be made. Many new experiences arose. Many utterly disgusting and unimaginable things happened to X’s body. It was hard for X to see himself as who he’d become at this time. He only knew that he was sick and he needed to get better. He knew that he had to follow the doctor’s instructions to the last word in order to stay ‘healthy’ or even alive.
X always had awareness in the back of his mind that the procedure would work. Waves of doubt would crash upon him at the most insignificant moment.
“Will it work? Will I live? Am I going to be all right?” he’d ask himself.
But, behind these temporary moments of doubt was a wealth of confidence that it would work, that he’d be healed. Perhaps X just didn’t want to believe that he could die. Perhaps no one believes that they can die until the last moment has faced them. Perhaps he had this belief because he told himself over and over that each new event towards his program was the next step towards killing the disease. Perhaps he had this belief because he’d asked for it.
Although X had been raised a Catholic, he hadn’t been following his religion for some time. As a child, he’d been taken to church nearly every Sunday. He’d had distant memories of he and his mother praying together at night, learning verses for his first communion. He’d come from a discreet religious family. He’d gone to catechism for twelve years. He never had really thought about religion too much until he began studying philosophy in college. This began to spark an interest in something greater than himself. Perhaps philosophy opened his mind enough to see that existence is minute whereas eternity is never ending. As a young individual, he didn’t find any use for his religion, but it still lingered somewhere within him. People say that your religion is always there for you and all you need to do is reach out. In a sense, this had been true for X. In the moment he had broken his leg, his first scream was out of intense pain and his second scream was for God’s help. In that moment, his religion came screaming back to him and in that moment he felt comfort. When it came down to a decisive moment of true existence, an instinctual testimony of his faith screamed out. This had been the moment
of truth.
In the following months, this relationship had grown. It wasn’t something that he declared. Rather, it had been an inner strength that he kept for himself. It guided him and gave him the courage to face each new challenge in his protocol. He asked for this strength on a daily basis. He asked for hope to fill him. He asked God to spare his life. He found a new relationship with his mom that had passed away. He knew he couldn’t do it alone. Some believe that this could have been X’s own inner strength that lead the way. X knew it was not his own.
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