Determined to do/the only thing you could do…

When I was six, I dropped a large wooden board on my toe, right where the nail emerges. My mother lifted me up and soaked my foot in the bathroom sink in Epsom salts. I cried fiercely, and my mother said she wished she could take the pain from me. Impossible, of course. Later, I lost the toenail.

The night before my last chemo infusion, I woke thinking of my mother who died nearly a year ago. She never knew I had cancer. Of all my family, only my mother endured chemotherapy, at age 80. Like so many mothers and daughters, we had a tangled and complicated relationship, sometimes fierce, sometimes outright silly and joyous. Not knowing about my cancer was one thing she was spared in her life, at least. No one seeks cancer, but in this long and snowy winter, I was spared the misfortune of being a parent of a sick child. Anything can change in this world, at any moment, but for now….

Recently finished with chemo treatments, how grateful I am to Dartmouth and its staff for their exquisite care. How humbled and thankful I am for the people who wrapped around me – some of whom I’d never met before. To write that cancer changed my life would sound trite. The deeper truth is that this disease will be with me for the remaining days of my life. But my life is in the present tense. I have not changed. I am changing. How blessed I am to be here.

… little by little…
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver