Let's just get this out of the way.
I am not brave.
I am not courageous.
I am definitely not a saint.
Yet, people call me, and people like me, these things.
This makes me really uncomfortable.
Having CF, and having a transplant, do not make me brave.
Are you brave when you get up, get dressed, have your breakfast, and go to work? When you do the dishes and get the mail and pay the bills? No. You're living your life and being responsible.
When I did my treatments, took my enzymes, went to clinic, did IV meds...that was my life. When I take my meds in the morning, when I go to clinic now, that's my life. That's completely normal to me. It's not brave. It's not courageous.
Deciding to have a transplant? It was just deciding to live my life, to do what I needed to do to extend it. I wasn't afraid of dying on the table, because I knew without the surgery, I'd die anyway. So, choosing transplant wasn't brave. It was pragmatic.
Going to college? Getting my degree? Working? Again, no brave. Not courageous. Living my life. That's all.
When I see stories about how "Brave" people like me are, because we live with illness, I want to scream. It's not brave. It's just doing what you have to do with the hand you're dealt. What would you do? Curl up in a ball and refuse to leave your room? Refuse to do treatments? I guess. I knew CF people who did.
Bravery and courage are not what I have. I hated selling Girl Scout cookies. I'm not brave. I won't sky dive or even do a high-ropes course. I'm NOT A SAINT. I just am. I live my life the way all the rest of you do. This morning, I took my pills with my coffee. I've been taking pills with my breakfast since I was about two years old. It's not out of the ordinary. It's not brave. I'm not brave when I "let" people stick me multiple times to get an IV in. That's not bravery. That's what I have to do. What's my other option?
My parents are brave. They hold it together when everything is threatening to fly apart. I am not brave. I'm just doggedly stubborn.
Brave people are the people who rushed into the World Trade Centers on 9/11 to save the people inside, knowing they would probably die. Navy SEALs are brave people. Soldiers, firemen, nurses, first responders--they're brave. I don't put my life on the line. I don't do anything to save other people.
So please don't call me brave. I'm not.
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