Today I went to the doctor to try and figure out what is going on with my health. The good news is that the fact that I am not sicker and am still alive means I likely don't have lung cancer. Then on my way to see my hospice patient, my nephew called to tell me I am going to be a grand auntie. My hospice patient wasn't expected to live to this week, and I was happy to know that he was still alive. So there was new birth and two reprieves in one day.
The visit with my client was astounding in such very simple and to me very sacred way. He had rebounded and just today was out of the bed and eating for the first time in ten days. His daughters had arrived for a visit and the rabbi said maybe he wanted to hold on for Rosh Hashanah. People often hold on for the last loved one to show up or for religious holidays. My client said he had bought into other people's ideas about when he was supposed to die and had decided he wasn't ready yet. He wanted to get out of the bed and feel alive while he was still alive. We talked about how blessed he was to have an amazing support group from his spiritual community and our hospice. As he pondered these blessings, he started crying. I held his hands and told him how blessed I felt to have met him and been on this journey with him. Then we cried together about our blessings. We talked about God, light, love and many sweet things. I didn't cry for him, but cried with him out of a shared sense of awe at the journey we were taking together. His dying of cancer in particular has made these weeks of waiting for some answers particularly sharp for me.
Today I got an email from a friend who is courageously moving through treatment for colon cancer. She wrote:
"I heard last night that Patrick Swayze died after 2 years of cancer treatment. Stage 4 spread from the pancreas to lymph nodes to the liver. (similar to her own progression) I know that I have my unique relationship with my healing and with my faith, but hearing this just scares me, like I'm fooling myself. Friends said to reach out when it gets hard, and today, it's hard."
Nothing feels more sacred to me than being with someone in the midst of moments like these: the joy of my nephew over his news, the poignancy of my client's last days and the angst of my friend. These moments of human joy and human agony are often the most powerful connectors to our experience of God or the divine.
Irony as I posted my blog I got this advertisement. Ah the sacred and the profane.
Lung Cancer Patients
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www.cancercenter.com
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