We all need some soul-swans

Dear Stalwarts All,

Good drippy-wet morning of May to everyone.  I have been thinking lately that I am going to use my blog to chronicle the rest of my life.  I feel so much better without nausea or pain or any of those nasty things that I don’t want, but I feel like I have the unique opportunity to prepare for something that has been prepared for and done for ever and ever --death --and talk about it openly. 

And yet, at the moment, my family and friends are wrapped around me and I feel as if I am having a stay-cation at home.  We have breakfast and talk, we stand aside as the crazy husband fills yet another pot of flowers (we will have to water those, remember Chippie dear?????) , we have family dinners and laugh and talk.  We are all thankful that things seem to be a little stable now, but I know and they do too.  This disease process is walking right next to me, moving across my face so that I am having trouble seeing, moving around my nervous system and peeking up down that arm or around that chest dermatome or on the top of my head.  She has me by the hand but isn’t pushing.  We’ve known each other well over the years.  I don’t know whether to hate her or to feel some other way.  I have asked this before.  She left me alone for 10 years or so as we made professional lives and launched kids, but then she raised her head again.

Here’s the thing.  I’m tired of playing warrior now.  At some point that I can’t quite remember, maybe it was the 5^th or 6^th chemo treatment with my hands. and feet and soul bleeding  a little bit, I think I got tired.  I am still tired.  This particular advanced stage breast cancer issue I’m dealing with has no good treatments.  Whole brain irradiation or chemo directly into the cerebral spinal fluid just sound awful and full of side effects and poorly effective.  I am a Libra for goodness sake; we don’t make decisions well, but this one is easy.  No more treatments.  Luckily for my Libra-self, my counts are too low anyway.  I would not tolerate any treatment either.

What I didn’t know is that I would have the opportunity now to feel good and get on and live the best way I can now with everyone by my side.  I think that is the best preparation I can make—for me and for them.  I will be open about what is happening, we will have to talk about death and funerals and all those practical things, but we also have the opportunity to talk about us, remember how we met, record, draw, play how the kids were born and their unique foibles that we love and laughed at so (sorry guys), and still laugh at, and how we are as a family now.  I don’t think we often sit down to do talk about these things, and I love that we are. We all should, shouldn’t we!  I am appreciating what I have by the bucket load these days.

And I have the opportunity to read (well, at least with one eye!), write, consider and think about what I really believe with lots of wise people around me weighing in.  Dare I use the L word?  I do feel lucky.  I’m sure I won’t, and I didn’t feel so lucky when I felt so poorly a few weeks ago, but the darn word does keep bubbling up.  I feel happy now, if I know what that word means.  I feel full; I don’t regret much at all, I have lived a lucky life.  I am well loved and I love well.  I have the opportunity not to work right now, etc.  My father asked me a question when he was very sick.  He said, “Why do you love me”.  Clearly it was a hard question for him to ask; he certainly didn’t make it easy for his kids to understand him.  I don’t need to ask that question; I am lucky.  

But ok, just for yucks, here’s my one regret.  After playing field hockey in our senior year of college, some of us where asked to go to the Olympic training camps and try out.  I didn’t go.  Now I’ll never know if I might have made the team or not.  I thought I had other places to go; I needed to take a few classes before applying to medical school.  Dumb!  Remember this out there!!!  Take those things offered to you even if they aren’t exactly on your idealized track!!!!  Ok, that is pretty much it.

Today is our 26^th Wedding Anniversary, and if it weren’t for our lovely friends, Mr. and Mrs. Friend, we would have both forgotten.  We do it every year and then laugh at ourselves.  We might even go out to dinner now that we “remember”.

There is just one poem that has been been banging around my brain for awhile.  I first heard it at a retreat in Mexico years ago, and I still am not clear exactly who wrote it, but I believe it was a 15^th C princess named Mirabai who is really known for her music.  This poem may then have been a chant or something, but it is quite beautiful, and I love thinking I have soul-swans of my own.

Oh friend, understand.

The body is like the ocean, rich with

Hidden treasures.

Open your innermost chamber

And light its lamp.

Within the body are gardens,

Rare flowers, peacocks; the inner music;

Within the body a lake of bliss,

On it, the white soul-swans take their joy.

                                                            -Mirabai