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Hey, All! I apologize for leaving you hanging a bit since my last newsletter. I asked for prayers for my last MRI and told you I’d share results, and then I didn’t. For two weeks now, some of you have been asking how it went and whether I sneezed. Good news: your prayer has been effective on both fronts. I did not sneeze. The inside of the Winship MRI was spared my spittle. Moreover, the results look fine. Apparently trying to read MRI images is a little like trying to read a news app underwater, so aspects of the images are fuzzy, but the important thing is that I’m feeling good. My brain surgeon not concerned. Life is going on and, in the words of Julian of Norwich, “All will be well. All manner of things will be well…for there is a Force of Love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go.”* I’ll have my next MRI in January.
But as you’ve guessed, MRI week is always kind of tough. Not because MRI’s are physically uncomfortable. They really haven't been bad for me. (Some people have more of a reaction to the dye they put in your veins.) The trial for me has been more an internal one.
This past week, my friend Sr. Patty gave me the image of Damocles’ sword based on a recent Commonweal article by David Mills. I wasn’t familiar with the story of the sword of Damocles before reading the article and had to look it up to understand what Mills was saying. I will save you the effort:
The Sword of Damocles is an ancient Greek tale that was favored by the Roman writer Cicero. It is the story of a courtier named Damocles who was praising King Dionysius and telling him how fortunate he was to be such a privileged person of great power and wealth. Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for a day. He welcomed Damocles to sit in his throne, amidst all his privilege, but above Damocles’ head, he hung his sword by the single hair of his horse’s tail to give him a sense of what it was really like to be king, constantly surrounded by situations that could do you in. Apparently is a tale often told to capture the lived experience of leaders, and in that sense, I don’t think it works well as a metaphor for living with terminal cancer. But in Mills’ essay, he uses the image of the sword to describe what it is like to have a really great life but always feeling as if death could drop at any moment. Most days it doesn’t. There is only one day when it will. But it is always just hanging there by a horse hair and it is hard to focus on anything else. Because the sword is just there. All. The. Time.
The reality, I know, is that all of us have the sword of Damocles hanging over us all.the.time and most days I too can focus somewhere else and do just fine. For me, it is just the weeks around the MRI that make me all jittery inside. But there you have it. The weeks around the MRI are that time each season where I feel most separated from other people and feel like no one understands, but then also the most connected to other people and know we all are one.
I am appreciative of a poem sent to me recently by retired psychologist and new poet Bob Thompson, who graciously agreed I could share one of the poems from his new book my examined life written during this season of living with pancreatic cancer:
Unlike you, I have stopped planning for next year.
Like you, I still care what my garden looks like.
Unlike you, I feel the closeness of my death.
Like you, I do not know the day.
Unlike you, I see each meal as a small gift.
Like you, I sometimes eat without tasting it.
Unlike you, I have let the future go.
Like you, I reach for my lover’s hand in the dark.
Unlike you, I know which losses are already mine.
Like you, I grieve things I haven’t lost yet.
Unlike you, I have held the word terminal in my mouth.
Like you, I have no word for what comes after.
Unlike you, I have begun to say the long goodbyes.
Like you, I don’t know how to start them.
Unlike you, I listen to music as though for the last time.
Like you, I cannot explain why a song cracks me open.
Unlike you, I’ve stopped saving for later.
Like you, I have left some things unsaid.
Unlike you, I’ve learned dying is slow, ordinary work.
Like you, I expected it to feel more dramatic.
Unlike you, I pray without asking for much.
Like you, I don’t know if anyone is listening.
Unlike you, I have been given the gift of urgency.
Like you, I waste some of it every single day.
Unlike you, I know the shape of my particular darkness.
Like you, I find that light still breaks each morning.
Bob’s poem reminds me that all those experiences that we feel separate us need to be named and honored, but not in such a way that we forget all that binds us and that we still experience in common. Especially that light still breaking through each morning.
Thank you to Bob and each of you for helping me to make it over this most recent MRI hump by helping me to find words for it.
UPCOMING WEEKEND: Speaking of finding words…. Next Sunday marks the Feast of All Saints—one of my favorite feasts each year! That evening at 7 p.m. ET I am going to be participating in a Virtual Preaching Slam with my beloved colleagues Kayla August, Cecelia Gonzalez-Andrieu, and Kerry Alys Robinson, sponsored by Catholic Women Preach. Each of us will speak about our favorite holy woman in the communion of saints, and I’m going to talk about St. Thekla. You are most welcome to join! Free registration here.
(*Thank you to my friend Joanne for the Julian of Norwich quote.)