Life’s an unsolved mystery. Those who solve it, don’t talk about it. Those who don’t, talk a lot. ~ Yogi tea bag
Huh?
It seems that everywhere we turn these days someone’s trying to give us free advice—the Tarot card lady on the corner, the stranger in the coffee shop, the pushy librarian, the whacked out drunk walking the street, shouting obscenities. In addition to all the unwelcome advances on your better sense, Life seems peppered with those little daily affirmations of wisdom, good judgment and no-brainers—Share your strengths, not your weaknesses (duh!)—on tea bags, bottle caps, fortune cookies, calendar pages, and other sundries of everyday ware that are somehow supposed to extend meaning and purpose into our most mundane moments. So heavily salted we are with these ceaseless sprinkles of therapy that we may not think to call on our mothers, sisters, or best girl friends—Joni Mitchell songs included—for that much-needed chat, guided imaging, or righteous attitude adjustment, when really, truly, we should, especially when the chips are down, and your morning tea-therapy session, that leaves you with To succeed, consult three old people just isn’t cutting it. The vicissitudes of daily life notwithstanding, there are times, when something truly nasty hits and there seems to be no way out, when only the very best will do, and these are the times when we gather together our friends and family and steel ourselves against the most destructive of storms. But there’s another course, too: to stay open to the possibility that sometimes help arrives from the most unexpected places.
When I was hit, slammed, catapulted (and I’m still waiting to land) by my breast cancer diagnosis, I did the only thing I could: I reached out and asked for help, grabbing my heart and thrusting it out for anyone who would listen to the beat and thump of my absolute terror. The response was immediate, and overwhelming. Old friends and new, kith and kin, appeared to help me on my journey, steering the ship, scrubbing the barnacles off the rudder, fighting the scurvy pirates, swabbing the decks, manning the galley, and summoning wind and fair weather for smooth passage. I was caught off-guard, humbled, thankful. Knowing that I would need all the help that was offered, I took it in, with open arms, readied my sails, and gathered together their strength, my strength.
It’s the call of Ubuntu: to recognize that I am what I am because of who we all are, to understand my place in this circling, cycling web of humanity, and experience the collective warmth within. Those Celtic jumping-hug circles aside, Ubuntu speaks to all of us. As the Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained it, “A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” No superstars, no heroes, just everyday folk living in concert with the greater community and natural environment, recognizing their place in the global web and the strength in the interconnectedness of all living things, a pulsating spiral of concentric circles.
During these last six months, my circles have widened, as I have relied on so many people for so many things—from helping me find the team of doctors who would ultimately rid my body of cancer, reconstruct my breast, and oversee my treatment and recovery for the foreseeable future, to sending words of encouragement that have arrived at just the right time, when my optimism has been floundering in choppy seas, and from someone, somewhere in the thick fog a landline appears, or taking the time to visit, share a hug, bring a meal, and fill my sails with loft and flight. And I’ve come to depend on being able to tell my story, to process all the psychic turbulence and mental mayhem, and let it go. I’ve been incredibly moved by the response I’ve received from those who, in reading my blog, have given me something that has made all the difference in the world to my ability to make it through these grim, unsettled days: a compassionate ear, a word of encouragement, a ray of hope, a tether. And many, too, have listened and loaned me their own stories in return, an exchange of experience, a gift of wisdom, and a blending of voices that has seasoned this journey with civility and compassion, illuminating and enlightening the darkest recesses of this voyage of soul, and vanquishing the acute loneliness and resolute fear that often fester below the decks.
We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women—whose stories, for all our differences, turn out to be our stories also.~ Barbara Denning
True gifts of the heart, these stories have come from all sorts of people, and they have brought me to tears and opened my heart to joy. I owe the wonderful quote above to my old dorm head from Exeter days, Susan Herney, whose support this spring has served as a potent reminder that an immediate benefit to reaching out has been hearing back from men and women who have graced many different chapters and pages in my life—beloved Exeter friends, teachers, and classmates who have carried me and amazed me since I was just a girl of fourteen, my bawdy rugby compatriots from Williams days, who continue to slay me with their warmth and humor, dear friends who have crept lovingly into my life and stayed, filling the hollows with generous comfort and love, and family members who have proven, again and again, that “the family is indeed a haven in a heartless world.”
Many of the women I have heard from have experienced breast cancer in ways that have touched their lives irrevocably and moved them to renegotiate their life paths. Wherever they are in their journey—whether they’ve just received the sting of the diagnosis, and are wondering just how far into the depths of despair their passage will take them; had multiple lumpectomies without clear margins, and are now facing losing one or both breasts; endured any horrific combination of lumpectomy, mastectomy, reconstruction, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, ovarian ablation, and are now trying to find the lightness of peace of mind in their day to day; or done battle with the breast cancer beast and lived to tell their tale—these women are true warriors, having had to summon that tenacity and valor to drive the cancer away, and share their tales, heavy with triumphs and travails, sage understanding and a bold return to life.
Strangers or not, as we reach out to each other, sharing fortitude, perspective, insight, our voices blending in melodious chords of euphonic rage and joy, the circle expands, a gathering of women tethered by, quite simply, the common thread of cancer. In and from these women, I have witnessed amazing strength, courage, and grace, learned when to buck up and fight and when to surrender, take flight, or go turtle-slow, and discovered my own warrior girl within, who has taken my hand and led me stoically through this grim channel. I have taken much comfort from this collective sisterhood, and because of it, am on my way to regaining trust in this universe and, for all that, and for all of you, I am exceedingly, eternally grateful.
So many women out there of all ages have had to do battle with breast cancer, and it may be that because I myself am trying to navigate this labyrinth with its unexpected twists and turns, I am hearing of more and more women who are somehow assimilating breast cancer and all its distractions into their lives, while brandishing their warrior girls to face their diagnoses with brave hearts and open minds, and kick ass. Both women and men have written to me with their own stories, sharing the wisdom of experience, and what they’ve, and the people close to them—mothers, sisters, daughters, friends—have learned along the way. They’ve written to offer support and encouragement, send love, deliver that all-too-critical Juju, and surround me with good wishes. They’ve handed off not just wisdom but courage and strength and grace and beauty, too, and were it not for them, I know that I would not have been able to greet this morning with a thought for tomorrow.
Wisdom becomes knowledge when it becomes your personal experience. ~ Yogi Bhajan
I have been heartened by stories of friends’ mothers who have braved and defeated their breast cancer, and now ten, twenty, thirty years out are still going strong. I have heard from friends whose mothers and mothers-in-law celebrated thirty plus years as breast cancer survivors, only to have it return in a more aggressive form, knock them off their feet, and accompany them out of this life into the great gulf of the unknown. It is tough hearing those stories, bringing up anxiety about whether my cancer will return, and making me hope that I have at least another thirty years of happy, healthy living to shout about by the time all is said and done. My own grandmother, my mother’s mother, enjoyed another thirty plus years of world traveling, motorcycle riding, partying, and howling at the moon after her first waltz with breast cancer, living gracefully with an unreconstructed breast (and a much joked-about blow-up bra) for many, many good years, until she reached her early 80’s, when the breast cancer returned to annoy, but never overcome. She never did let it beat her, and I have been bolstered by the unflappable strength and feisty spirit she passed on to all of us when she died a little over nine years ago. As well, I have been uplifted by strangers who have written to offer whatever I might need to get through, and I have been humbled by the opportunity to return the gift. These are stories that have become a part of me and will stay with me forever.
I have been struck with not only how many women I know of who have had to deal with breast cancer, but how young so many seem to be. My friend Lisa, just 40, had just had her first mammogram ever when she was told that there might be a problem. After retakes confirmed the ominous presence of suspicious tissue, she had the first of four lumpectomies, none of which would return clear margins. Lisa had a double mastectomy with reconstruction just a few weeks ago. She is doing well, her spirits lifting each day, but it has been a struggle. Her journey—infused with the love and support of her close family and good friends, her perennial optimism, her overflowing warmth and love of life—has left a blazing trail that I’ve been able to follow.
That very first morning I ran into Lisa and her family—her daughter, mother, and boyfriend—in pre-op, as I was heading in for my biopsy/lumpectomy, and she for her second lumpectomy, she handed off her courage to me. Take this, she said, with a hug, and I held it close, unsure of when I might need it. Minutes later, changing into the anonymity of the standard issue hospital wear and id bracelets, I was suddenly aware that I was alone, and I could feel the anxiety rising up and clamping down on my breath, and I thought of L. and her family just two curtains away, and I drew on their show of support as the nurses came in to take me downstairs. I drew on the lingering warmth of Lisa’s embrace as I gutted out the sinister needle localization procedure and wished I had a hand to hold as I sat through being squeezed into mammography equipment, blood spurting from my breast as the radiologist withdrew the needle that had tagged the area of suspicious tissue for removal. I drew on the face of Lisa’s courage as I returned to pre-op to wait out the stretch of long minutes alone, for the numbing, descending drip of twilight that would render me useless during much of the biopsy, before wearing off and eliciting an urgent call to “Give her more, give her more!” And I drew on Lisa’s kindness as I came to in post-op, felt the end rush of twilight wash over me, and saw her face come around the corner to wish me well before she herself went home to recover, and my mother came to pick me up and take me home, where I would begin the long, insidious wait for answers.
Sometimes, we hear terrible things about people and don’t know how to respond. Cancer is one of those terrible things. Sometimes it comes up in conversation—Oh, I had breast cancer this past winter. I’m doing okay now—and you don’t know what to say, because it’s not just a passing flu, after all. Even after the cancer has been cut out, any remaining cancer cells irradiated, or blasted by apoptosis, the grim task of chemotherapy and hormone therapy, it’s still there—the heaviness of doubt and depression amidst a longing for traveling light and unencumbered, the feeling that you’ve quite lost your footing and are not sure how to get it back, the sense of loss amidst experience and wisdom gained, fragility in the face of uncommon strength, and uncertainty against a canvas of a budding, creative life force. Cancer casts a long shadow that does not go away, and changes you forever.
There’s a woman I know who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in her left breast at the age of 28. 28! Can you imagine? She had a lumpectomy with radiation, and set about living her life. Just a year or so ago, as she reached that pinnacle of mid-life, with a lovely teenage daughter, a loving husband, and her own successful business, the cancer returned. I saw Penny for a facial just a few weeks before she was due to head in for her double mastectomy. She had already had the chemo and lost her hair, which she then covered with a wig. No matter how anxious she was on the inside, she exuded confidence and calm on the outside, talking about her upcoming surgery as if she was going in to get a new car. I was amazed, and terrified for her, and suddenly, for me. This was a woman who was young, beautiful, athletic, the very picture of health. It was the first time I felt that stab of fear, filling my lungs with a disquieting apprehension that nearly took my breath away: if she got cancer, that meant I could too. It wasn’t something I wanted to think about.
When I received the news of my diagnosis, I scheduled another facial with Penny, and was pleased to see how well she was doing. Her hair was growing back in beautiful curls, her strength was back, and she seemed in good spirits. But her optimism was tempered, by a persistent fatigue, and by the haunting memories of having to watch the slow drip of the chemotherapy drugs entering and poisoning her body. It was good to talk to her that day, and feel her fighting spirit, palpable and dynamic. Later, she and her daughter would drop off an incredibly helpful how-to-get-through-it book that I have used over and over again, and some head scarves that I have somehow managed to avoid needing.
Yes, somehow, I did escape the dreaded chemo and all the expected fallout: losing my hair, needing to wear a wig or scarf, waiting for the curls to grow back in, dealing with ovaries that were being shut down prematurely, the flush of the hot flash, the suddenness of the change. But I was ready. My friend Karen offered to come with me when I needed to get my new warrior girl haircut (which she has, and which I had for many years). My mother told me about great wig shops that would consider your hair before you lost it in order to create a more compelling match. And my father’s sister, my sweet Aunt Kit, who quite amazingly is the longest known survivor of brain cancer EVER, saved a “colorful cover-up kerchief” for me, just in case. Kit’s story, having survived not one but TWO brain tumors at a very tender age, losing her hair to the radiation therapy, and being forced to endure the endless taunts of classmates, is remarkable, and demonstrates the human spirit in a way that has moved me to tears to try to imagine what she had to go through. She writes that the “very worst part of my baldness after getting radiation therapy for the brain tumor was having to go to a new school in New York at age 12. The teacher told me to go to the coatroom and leave my hat! And all I could say was “But, B…but.” She made me sit at a table for the shortest boys...and I was the tallest girl.” Kit’s mother (and my grandmother), whom we affectionately called Tootsie, had embroidered the wonderful stick figures she was known for on the hat, but Kit never wore it to school again. She switched instead to a kerchief, which only “enticed the nasties to try to pull it off to see the scar! I have to say the teacher made me her teacher’s once she found out who I was…and I thought it was because I was the only one whose father was overseas!”
There’s something especially difficult about the notion of children having to face the terrors of cancer, chronic illness, or the endless rounds of treatment or surgery. A friend from high school has a daughter who has been through three rounds of eyelid surgery in an attempt to maintain her vision and later on, “keep the finger-pointing and prejudice about her appearance at bay. Like the Los Angeles plastic surgery devotees who get a little work done on a regular basis,” she’ll need work done here and there as part of the ongoing process to keep her healthy and happy. My friend talks about her daughter’s “towering good-nature” and I cannot help but think of those young children who have known of nothing else than the endless parade of doctor’s visits, surgeries and treatments and still, their light shines through on all of us.
I have good friends from college who have gone through the unthinkable: losing a child to cancer. I’m not sure how they quite managed it all, but they did, and left us all in awe of their insurmountable love, and astonishing resilience and grit. Little Henry would be Dominick’s age now. I’ve thought of him—and his parents—quite often. And I’ve wondered how it was for him, to greet each day with a smile, and for them, to scoop him in their arms, cast off their fury and sorrow, and simply be with him in all his light and love.
I suppose we do what we have to do. Losing a child at any age must be the most savage, excruciating experience a parent can endure. My step mother Martha lost her sister, Patty, to breast cancer. Patty was young, and it was a devastating blow to her family and friends. Several years later, when Martha was faced with the discovery of pre-cancerous tissue in one of her breasts, she did what she had to do: she made the decision to have a double mastectomy, and gave herself the gift of peace of mind. Martha has been a constant source of support for me these past few months; it was particularly helpful to hear what to expect post-mastectomy and beyond, to hear all those little things that the docs leave out. Right before my mastectomy, Martha sent me a beautiful e-mail, her words radiant with the light of the wisdom that she was now passing on to me. Hearing her speak of the absolute trust she put into the surgery made a huge difference in how I entered pre-op, leaving behind the frenetic anxiety, and adopting, instead, the calming conviction that everything would be alright. Breathe and you shall receive. I had to trust all that good Juju coming my way. Martha writes: “For me, it was the peace of letting go and letting be; a sense of trust and relief that the long anticipated next leg of the journey had finally begun, and healing was now in my own hands.” She adds a quote from the poet Seamus Heaney:
Omnipresent, imperturbable
Is the life that death springs from.
And there is no complaint, no complaint at all,
Now that the rye grass waves beside the ruins.
She adds, “It is my guidance when I think I am at the center of a storm. I am reminded that re-birth is always available to me. Life insists on itself.” Indeed.
My dear friend Kate sent me a t-shirt a few days after my mastectomy. Long-sleeved, soft and cottony, it was a shirt I wanted to put on right away, and one I would wear throughout this past spring whenever I needed an extra boost of confidence: giving a speech at my Exeter reunion in front of my class, heading in for my first fill-up at the plastic-surgeon’s office, going in to hear the final pathology report from the oncologist. Emblazoned on the chest are three little words that have meant nearly as much to me as those other three little words that one hears now and again: One Brave Chick. This, from Henry’s mother. Brave Chicks, it seems, abound.
And so, we pass the torch. I wrote last week about an old rugby friend, Emmy, who had successfully battled colon cancer after a colonoscopy diagnosed what had been minor stomach symptoms. I have many friends who are themselves or have partners or parents in the throes of their own crusades against cancer, and I hear the all too familiar beat and thump of terror, the crushing dread and prickly anticipation. I hear too the call to arms, the rush of spirit transcending the pressing hollows of fear and fighting onward. And sadly, I have friends whose parents have lost their battles, and I know that the depth of their sorrow and loss must be, at times, insurmountable. But there are many more that are on the other side, easing their battle-weary bodies and souls into the tentative triumph of recovery.
At my Exeter reunion this past spring, I happily reconnected with my old English teacher Peter Greer, who has been living determinedly with his own cancer. In a recent email, he captures the joys of his recovery in a way that offers something to all of us, a reminder of the wondrous flush and rapture of living not within or without but here and now:
“And, as for recovery, here's what I have found: As I have felt better and better, I have found it harder and harder to stay in bed much after daybreak, ever more eager to get started on a new day thick with options and possibilities. With all the daylight we now have, that means I sleep less than I might like, but I live an expanded present, it seems, and, to quote myself in shameless fashion, it is the only present I'll ever have, the only present any of us who aren't time-travelers will ever have. And I love it.”
Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee. ~Montaigne
Burn bright, bright light, lest the past snuffs your fire. Let the present coax your flame, warm your soul, and set your day ablaze with color. Go, live!
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