Writing Through Cancer

Preface:  Three weeks ago, my six-year-old grandson gave his sister, age 4, a haircut, “artfully” executed with his Sesame Street scissors.  My daughter was sleeping a little later than usual on a Sunday morning, and as far as she knew, her dynamic duo were playing quietly together. 

She awakened to find Emily’s long blonde locks wound around the brushes of the carpet sweeper—a careful clean-up job undertaken by her brother.  She greeted her mother with a huge smile and a rather uneven pixie cut, while Nathan held back, aware, I think, that his hairdressing skills weren’t quite up to snuff.  My daughter handled it with more grace than I might have.  When she suggested to Emily that perhaps they could go to the local hairdresser to “straighten it up a bit,” my granddaughter was adamant.  “NO Mommy!  My brother gave me a haircut.  I be cute now!” 

And so she was—with her long hair or without it.  Claire accepted her wishes.  “She’s happy,” she said, “so I’m happy.”  (Nathan did, however, lose possession of his very own scissors). 

This week’s post about having—and losing—hair was previously published March 12, 2012.
___________

A dozen women, all living with cancer, were seated around the table with their notebooks open.  I had given them a short “warm-up” writing exercise, something I do at the beginning of a workshop.

“What’s on your mind this morning?  What thoughts or concerns have accompanied you to our group?” Write for five minutes; just keep the pen moving.  Don’t worry about what gets written.”  Notebooks opened and within seconds, only the sound of pens, moving across the pages, could be heard. “Who wants to read first?” I asked.  One woman, her head covered with a brightly colored scarf, raised her hand.

“I’m angry about losing my hair,” she said as she began to read what she’d written.  “My hair has been my signature, long and full…”  She looked up from her notebook and reached for a tissue.  Her eyes were red and teary.  Several of the women nodded sympathetically.  Two of them also wore headscarves or wigs, two others had removed theirs in favor of short, newly grown heads of hair, grateful chemotherapy was behind them.  I recalled my embarrassment when twice, as a teenager, I sported a bald head after neurosurgery, covering it with scarves when I returned to school and praying no one would laugh at me.  I felt unattractive and vulnerable to taunts or teasing, all from losing my hair.

Hair loss is one of the unfortunate side effects of chemotherapy that the majority of cancer patients experience.  While some of the newer, more targeted chemotherapy drugs don’t result in hair loss, the majority do.   Thankfully, the loss is temporary, and there’s solace in knowing that the drugs are helping you fight your illness, hair loss can have a powerful effect on our emotions.

Hair, whether male or female, losing it or not, affects the vast majority of us.    Consider how much time and money is spent in support of your hair, whether cut, colored, shampooed or styled, or waxed, tweezed and shaved.  Remember the rock musical “Hair?”  The styles of the sixties?  Long, full, permed, and wild, our hair was evidence of youthful freedom and rebellion.

Gimme’ a head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair…

(Lyrics from  Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, by James Rado & Gerome Ragni)

Hair and hair styles are a distinctive feature of history.  Think of the powdered wigs from Mozart’s day, or the fashionable pony tails the men of Jefferson’s era.  Our stories of hair existed long before that sixties musical.  Remember the biblical story of Samson?  His power lay in his hair, giving him the strength to rip apart a lion or destroy temples with his bare hands.  He vowed never to never to have it cut.   His downfall came, of course, when he fell in love with Delilah.  Her powers of seduction gradually wore him down, and he revealed his secret:  if a razor were used on his head, he would lose his strength.  Delilah waited until Samson slept and ordered the servants to cut his hair.  When he awakened, his magnificent locks were gone, and with them, his strength, and he could no longer resist his captors.

Hair loss, whether the result of chemotherapy or genetic inheritance, affects men and women alike.  My husband’s hair has been thinning for years, and for a long time, he obsessed over his widening bald spot, yet resisting Rogaine treatments or comb-overs.  More than once, however, he returned from his hairdresser with a “new look,” an effort to mask the relentless disappearance of his hair.  Those attempts didn’t last—the fits of laughter induced by his new “do” from our daughters and me were enough to send him back to the barber for a less “hip” cut.  Thankfully, the bare head has become fashionable for men, and he’s embraced his shorn head with relief.

Gregory Corso, a Beat poet in the era of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, creates a kaleidoscope of images about how we treat and worry about our hair in his poem, simply entitled, “Hair.”

Come back, hair, come back!
I want to grow sideburns!
I want to wash you, comb you, sun you, love you!
As I ran from you wild before —
I thought surely this nineteen hundred and fifty-nine of now
that I need no longer bite my fingernails
but have handsome gray hair
to show how profoundly nervous I am.

(From Minefield:  New and Selected Poems)

The young woman from my writing group who mourned the loss of her hair that one morning has since recovered from her treatments.  Her hair has grown back, long and full.  She’s grateful, not just for her hair, but for enjoying a life without cancer.  In thinking about her, I remember a beautiful poem, “Farewell to Hair,” by Terradon.  She watches as her hair floats away in the breeze, but she finds solace—even gratitude—as she imagines how it might comfort other living creatures:

I stood outside on a windy day,
and ran my fingers through my hair.
Long strands of silky threads,
blew across the lawn…

I imagined a nest,
lined with my mane.
Woven by a mama bird…

Now on the wintry nights,
when my head is cold,
I pull my wool cap over my ears and smile.
As I dream of baby birds,
sleeping in my hair.

(In The Cancer Poetry Project, Vol. 1, Karin Miller, Ed.)
Hair.  It’s a topic that invites an unending supply of opinions, discussion, stories or poems.  This week, why not write about hair:  having it, losing it, styling it, coloring, cutting or even a time you experienced a hair style disaster.  Open up your old high school yearbook and take a look at that young person whose face in framed in a hair style that was popular at the time.  Chances are if you’re like most of us, you have a story or two to tell about hair.

Read Full Post »

This morning, as my husband read the humorous Father’s Day cards I bought for him, he laughed, but joked that the sentiments of Father’s Day cards don’t seem to carry the emotional impact of those for Mother’s Day.  I had to agree, since I’d perused the card racks for weeks before finally opting for sillier of those offered for purchase.  It turns out that it’s true.  In 2008, San Diego Union Tribune reporter, Jenifer Godwin, titled her article, “Father’s Day:  Even the cards are different.”  She stated:

     Moms and dads are more equal parenting partners than ever before, with studies showing men do far more housework and spend more time with their children than previous generations.

     Yet Father’s Day still doesn’t inspire the same need to bestow sentimental cards, gifts and dinners out as Mother’s Day.

There you have it.   Godwin cited a number of statistics to show the contrast between how we celebrate mothers and fathers.  More cards are sent to mothers on Mother’s Day and more money is spent on mothers’ gifts.  One more ironic note my husband observed was in the flowers, roses sent to me on from my oldest daughter on Mother’s Day and those she sent to him today.  His were fresher and more beautiful.  Why?  “I think it’s because everyone sends flowers to their mothers on Mother’s Day,” he said.  “The florists are in a rush trying to meet demand, whereas on Father’s Day, there aren’t nearly as many people sending fathers a dozen or two rosebuds.”

I think he has a point.   Father’s Day wasn’t even an official holiday until 1972, when then president Richard Nixon made it official, over a half century after the designation of an official Mother’s Day.

Yet child-rearing has changed since I was a kid, and they were changing even as I reared my own children.  There have been more than subtle shifts in parenting assumptions between mothers and fathers.  I see it manifested between my daughters and husbands:  a shared partnership of child-rearing responsibility.

When I was young, my father wasn’t as involved in our day-to-day upbringing as my mother, but his influence was felt in other ways.  He provided the emotional glue that held our family together; he was an affectionate, easy-going, and fun-loving father who, whenever we stopped at his store to beg for an after school treat at the local drugstore , he always produced a quarter from his pocket.  Sometimes, just as we were at the door, ready to leave, he’d call out, “Hey Kiddo…how about I come with you?”

He wasn’t hard on us kids,
never struck us, took us to
doctors and dentists when needed.
He used to sing in the car
bought us root beers along the road.
He loved us with his deeds.

(From: “A Father’s Pain,” in A River Remains by Larry Smith)

Dad was the father upon whose feet I stood to dance with him around the living room to a favorite Glen Miller or Benny Goodman tune, who taught me how to pitch a baseball and even execute a decent pass with a football– even as my mother wished I’d choose more “feminine” activities.  A man raised by an exceptional cook, he never failed to praise my meager attempts to bake one of my grandmother’s famous berry pies, often with a too much flour and not near enough sugar.  Even if the pie bordered on inedible, he ate the entire ample slice I served, flashed me a big smile and said, “My, but this might be the best blackberry pie I ever tasted.”

When my father died of lung cancer on Thanksgiving Day, 1992,  three months following his diagnosis,  none of his children were ready to let him go. The emptiness I felt in the wake of his death lingered for months afterward.  Perhaps my father’s death—and life—is one of the reasons I gravitated to leading expressive writing groups for cancer survivors.  Maybe it was because of all those afternoons I sat by his side as he prepared to die as he filled my head and heart with the stories from his life.  Even on the day of his death, he managed to get to the table and, for a short time, share the meal with his family.  He even asked for a second piece of pumpkin pie, smiling at my mother as he finished eating, “I think that was the best pie I’ve ever eaten.”

In a couple of hours, I’ll take my husband out for a celebratory brunch.  We’ve already sent cards and made calls to the other fathers in our immediate family.   But amidst all the celebration, I will be remembering my father today.  In my mind, I still hear the echo of his chuckle, remember his love of a good story.  As Jim Harrison wrote in a poem, “Larson’s Holstein Bull,” death steals everything but our stories.  My father’s legacy lives on in  stories, the ones he told and re-told year after year, the memories cancer can never take away.

I miss you every day–the heartbeat
under your necktie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with stories.

(From:  “Father” in Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser)

This week, write about fathers: their memories, the stories, and legacies.  And to all fathers who may read this post, Happy Father’s Day!

Read Full Post »

Prologue:  Yesterday I had the privilege of attending an adult Bat Mitzvah, invited by a friend whom I first met a few years ago when I led a women’s writing group at Jewish Family Services.  Her son had died suddenly at age 16, and she had come to the group in hopes  writing could provide a way to express her grief.  Yesterday, a journey inspired by her son, she celebrated her Bat Mitzvah.   It was a moving and joyful celebration, and I felt grateful to have  witnessed her journey from suffering to healing.  When she stood to share her story–her journey to fully embrace Judaism–I was moved to tears, remembering the first day I met her and yesterday, seeing the transformation in her joy and radiant smile as the ceremony ended.   Faith, Spirituality–these are important antibodies in helping us  heal after tragedy, loss and serious illness.  Today’s prompt is one previously posted October 21, 2012.

—————

Like so many Americans, I have become a lapsed church-goer over the years, discovering a different kind of meditation and prayer to sustain my daily life. It is my writing practice, a ritual that begins in the early morning—a walk with my dog followed by sitting in silence outdoors–before the tasks of the day intervene to pull me into their noisy demands.   I watch the sunlight embrace the trees, listen to the noisy serenade of the birds, and drink in the solitude before returning to the house to write.  There is gratitude waiting to be found in the early morning, and inspiration–poems, stories, insights–if only I sit quietly and notice.

When I go inside, I write,  opening the same notebook I’ve had for years, rubbing my fingers lightly over the Celtic knots engraved on the green leather cover, before picking up my pen.  Often the first words are no more than a response to the question, “what did you notice?” But it is enough.  Writing is my prayer, a door that opens to the deeper landscape of my interior life.  It is why, in part,  I encourage others to express and explore the experiences of their lives through writing, particularly those diagnosed with cancer.  It is humbling work, yet deeply gratifying, and for the many years I’ve been doing it, it has become a spiritual practice:  bearing witness and witnessing others’ lives.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time—Thomas Merton

Faith and spirituality are often written about, so important to the quality of life among many cancer patients.

In his 2009 New York Times blog, “One Man’s Cancer,” editor Dana Jennings, after being diagnosed with an aggressive prostate cancer, wrote about the importance of “spiritual antibodies” in his cancer journey.

I converted to Judaism five years ago, after decades spent stumbling toward God. That faith has helped sustain me this past year, from the diagnosis of my prostate cancer, through surgery, and through radiation and hormone treatment when it was learned that I had an aggressive cancer.

I am not a fool. I am a patient with Stage T3B cancer and a Gleason score of 9. I need the skills and the insights of the nurses and doctors who care for me. But they don’t treat the whole man. Medicine cares about physical outcomes, not the soul. I also need — even crave — the spiritual antibodies of prayer, song and sacred study.

Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs may be, faith and spirituality can provide strength and comfort during the difficult and painful chapters of life.   No one choses to suffer, to be diagnosed with cancer or suffer debilitating pain or trauma.  Those events may feel, at first, like a death sentence, and they can challenge your faith.  But the difficult chapters in our lives offer something else– a chance to deepen self-understanding and compassion, the opportunity to define what is essential and important in life, and to pay attention to and appreciate the ordinary gifts of each day.  “Each moment holds out the promise of revelation,” Jennings wrote.  (He survived his cancer ordeal and continues to enjoy life with his wife and sons).

As Jennings so eloquently expressed, the experience of cancer, of getting through treatment and recovery, is a deeply spiritual journey. Cancer forces us to pay attention, really pay attention, to what matters in our lives.  Your faith may deepen or you discover a nurturing spiritual practice. Oftentimes, when I ask the survivors in my writing groups to describe what sustains them during long months of surgery, treatment and recovery, I hear, “My faith grew, and I prayed a lot.”

While faith and spirituality are related, they’re not synonymous, yet whatever your beliefs may be, they can be an important source of strength and comfort.  Stephen Levine, best known for his work in death and dying, remarked, a 1989 interview with The Sun,  As part of our wholeness, we need our woundedness.  It seems written into spirituality that there’s a dark side to which we must expose ourselves.

Cancer—and other hardship–may plunge you into that dark night of the soul.  And while it may your faith may be challenged, it is an opportunity to explore what is truly essential—and soul nurturing—in your life. Meditation and prayer are a way to explore your faith or spirituality.  And so does writing, offering a door to enter and explore the deepest realms of our being.

“When you’re caught up in writing…” poet Denise Levertov remarked in her final interview, “it can be a form of prayer.”  When we write from our lives, we must have the courage to take a deep dive into our inner lives.  “Tell the truth,” Maxine Hong Kingston tells her war veterans as they meet to write their stories of battle.  Writing, whether of cancer, war, or other painful events in our lives, cracks us open.  We embark on a deeply spiritual journey.  It’s why so many established writers will tell you, “writing is a courageous act.”
Varda, a writer in my first group, died of metastatic breast cancer several years ago.  She wrote throughout her cancer journey, often humorously, sometimes poignantly, but always honestly.  She became one of our most beloved group members.  Nearing the final weeks of her life, she wrote “Faith,” a poem that examined her relationship with God:

God and I always had a special relationship,

sealed in ancient Hebrew prayers

and stained glass windows. 

The Shofar blown on Yom Kippur. 

The Book of Life open for ten days a year,

and then my fate sealed.

 

But our relationship has changed.

 In asking me to surrender to this illness,

God has asked me to let go—to trust—float free. 

And I have found this to be a most precious time.

 

My cancer has challenged my faith,

and I have found an incredible well I did not know I had. 

I have found true surrender,

 enormous peace.

 

I have come home to God, and we have renewed

our friendship.

To trust—float free…an incredible well I did not know I had.  As you write this week, consider these questions:  Has your faith been challenged at difficult times in your life? What has sustained you in times of illness, hardship or struggle? Where have you found your solace, your strength?  Write about how cancer has challenged or deepened your faith or spirituality.  What “spiritual antibodies” were most nourishing and sustaining for you?

Read Full Post »