Julian, I have a brain tumor Julian Schlusberg and his partner, Ort, were sitting on the couch in their den, when Ort made this announcement. And then Ort told Julian the rest of the story-how he went to the doctor for a flu shot and casually mentioned that he had been having dizzy spells. The doctor sent him for tests, and the results were bad-very bad. Ort had a large, aggressive brain tumor, a glioblastoma multiforme grade four that would cause his death within a year. In the years since Ort's death, Julian has been a traveler on the grief journey. In Uncommon Grace: Revelations in the Place Called Mourning, he recounts the life he has lived in those years. He has learned how brutal and merciless grief can be, but also how it can have the ability to alter our awareness and enable us to see and feel things we had never experienced before. Even in the face of insurmountable sadness and tragedy, it can lend some order to a world of heartbreak where nothing seems to makes sense. All of our sadness, anger, and frustration may ironically enable us to be more perceptive, insightful, and understanding. UNCOMMON GRACE REVELATIONS IN THE PLACE CALLED MOURNING By JULIAN S. SCHLUSBERG iUniverse LLC Copyright © 2013 Julian S. Schlusberg All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4917-0484-4 CHAPTER 1 Cancer, far from being a clandestine foe, is in fact berserkwith the malicious exuberance of killing. The disease pursuesa continuous, uninhibited, circumferential, barn-burningexpedition of destructiveness, in which it heeds no rules, followsno commands, and explodes all resistance in a homicidal riotof devastation. Its cells behave like the members of a barbarianhorde run amok—leaderless and undirected, but with a single-mindedpurpose: to plunder everything within reach. —Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die There was a small waiting room adjacent to a larger, more spaciousone on the surgical floor at Yale-New Haven Hospital in NewHaven, Connecticut. This was a paradox to me. Why wouldthere be a need for two waiting rooms in such close proximity toeach other? Certainly the smaller didn't look as comfortable oras comforting as the larger one. They were separated by a solidwooden door, and I noticed that the smaller room had anotherdoor at its far end as well, leading to a main corridor in the hospitalproper. And that corridor led to another one, and that to yetanother. There were so many. My experiences over the next elevenmonths would lead me on a journey through what seemed likehundreds of miles of such corridors—and bridges also, and tunnelsand elevators, all of which made the most remote areas of this hugecomplex accessible to the army of hospital personnel and patients.It was like a labyrinth, a maze—metaphorically much like thejourney Ort and I would take in this battle against brain cancer. The larger room was where family and friends anxiouslyawaited word concerning the surgery of a loved one. I was sitting inthat space, a newspaper spread on the table before me. I rememberoccasionally looking down at it and scanning the headlines becauseI needed to keep busy. I did this repeatedly, but if you asked me whatthe headlines said, I probably wouldn't remember. The surgeon toldme Ort's brain surgery would take four hours. An oversized clockhung on the wall, but I promised myself not to continuously lookat it because I thought doing so would make the four hours seemlike more of an eternity than it already was. Again I wondered why there were two waiting rooms side byside. We woke early that morning, November 23, 2008. It was coldand dark. We got ready to leave, not knowing what to say to eachother. The fear was palpable, and finally, before we left the house,we held on to each other so tightly. What were we sharing in thathug? Hope, desperation, fear, gratitude, our entire history, ourfuture? We said nothing verbally, yet that embrace spoke volumes.Silences speak. In the silence of our touch, I told Ort I would bethere for him, and I knew, even though he was the patient, Ortwould be there for me. We left the house and drove into the darkness toward thehospital. I smelled the coffee from the machine on my right. Thereceptionist apologized for the lack of bagels and other snacksthat would ordinarily be sitting on the counter. It was the Fridayafter Thanksgiving, and not many staff members were workingtoday, so there was no need for snacks. I felt a bit disturbed by thatrationale. Oh, I didn't really care about the bagels; I couldn't haveeaten anything if I'd wanted to. A cup of coffee was fine, and noteven to drink. Just to hold the cup. Just to hold on to somethingto keep my hands from trembling. I think I just objected to theidea that today wasn't that important to the staff when, to us, itwas the most important day of our lives. In retrospect, I realizedI was being unfair. The receptionist was polite and amenable. I,on the other hand, was agitated, preoccupied with insignificantmatters because, I suppose, my mind