Anniversaries of the Soul

Six years ago yesterday morning, my husband and I drove through the pre-dawn chill of a Denver February to Rose Hospital, where my beautiful baby boy with lips like, yes, roses, would arrive just a few hours later to complete my family and my heart. We listened to "Latika's Theme" from "Slumdog Millionaire," and I remember so well the feeling of peace, of happiness and expectancy that accompanied us, a little warm cocoon swaddling us as the dark and still early morning slipped by. I meditated and prayed - for a safe delivery of my son, for him to have a happy life, a life abundant in love and joy.  So far, so good. My gorgeous, funny, stubborn baby boy still skips nearly everywhere he goes, and although he's grown so long and lanky, he still folds himself happily into my lap and onto my shoulder for hugs and snuggles.  

    the two of us, a few years back

A year ago today, my husband and I drove to a different hospital and received very different news: the cancer we thought we had defeated had already returned, less than two months after my last chemotherapy session. I had new lesions on my liver. And so we put away our still only half-developed ideas about getting "back to normal" and began the process that continues today: managing my life - all of our lives - around the reality that I am still in active treatment for metastatic colon cancer.  It's not gone. It may never leave me. I have no idea how long I'll live (do any of us, really?), and no idea how to tell my children that - or if I should tell them at all. After all, today, almost two years since diagnosis, I'm managing pretty well. You would never guess to look at me that I'm a cancer patient, unless you happened to see the port that lives under my skin near my right collarbone, there to deliver chemotherapy or other medicines to allow my medical team to take blood whenever they need to without the inconvenience (and extra time) that an IV requires. I can walk for a couple of miles, drive my car, peform almost any task - except pick up my baby boy, because my ribs are still healing. I'm determined to get back on my yoga mat this month, and returning to my regular walking schedule that got sidetracked by the broken ribs. I feel good. I have an appetite and eat a vegan diet that really makes me feel well nourished and full of energy. I've whittled my medicines and supplements down to the barest of regimens. You get the picture. I'm healthy! But I have a scan in three weeks that will tell us whether I have any new lesions, and I'm already panicked. 

I live in a world where my mental health - and the health of those I love the most - relies heavily on the ability to carry on in the face of a terrible unknown. I have to keep making plans, and keep taking part in the tedium and wonder of everyday life, and I have to be able to keep laughing. Otherwise, what's the point? There's no point in capitulating to the fear, to the possibility that my health status may not be as stable as it seems. Because if I give in to the fears, to the probabilities -  then I'm failing to do my part in all of this, which is to fight like hell for every day and month and year I can, in every way I can. I'll be damned if some stupid bunch of crazy cells are going to take me from my home and my family, from the loves of my life. From my books and my students. From this tired, vital, beautiful and awesome planet. I just won't let that happen.

Usually, I manage pretty well. But the juxtaposition of these two anniversaries - one so hopeful, one so full of dashed dreams - it's gotten me good this weekend. I'm so glad to be here, so relieved that I woke up yesterday and was able to see my baby boy - now so full of cocky self-assurance and so bright and beautiful, which the most beatific smile - open his birthday presents, so happy that I was a part of the weekend's great excitement, which was how to decorate and fill the new little aquarium his grandmother gave to the birthday boy (he settled on a Betta Fish, and generously allowed his sister to buy a pet to live in there as well, and she picked an African Dwarf Frog). I so long to stay.