Feeds:

Posts Tagged ‘life stories’

For the Week of November 9, 2014: Tell Me a Funny Story

Posted in expressive writing, tagged , , , , , , , on November 9, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

…when you are raised with the gift of laughter, as I was, it can’t stay suppressed forever. It’s too powerful. Thank goodness for that. I eventually could see bits of “ha-ha” in my own life. Certainly not in the cancer, but in the mind-blowing circumstances that suddenly consumed my life. And laugh­ing at parts of those experiences made me feel a little more alive.

The funniest part of it all was that the more I allowed myself to laugh, the more therapeutic my tears became.   —(Jim Higley, “Finding Humor in the Midst of Cancer,” Coping with Cancer Magazine, March/April 2012)

We all need a little laughter in our lives, whether we’re dealing with cancer, an overly-busy and stressful life, remembering those who’ve passed on, or simply sharing time with friends and loved ones.  We need to laugh just as much as sometimes, we need to cry.

It’s true.  In the summer of 2013, I participated in the Omega Institute’s “Living Well with Cancer weekend.  At the closing event, the topics turned from treatment, nutrition, and spiritual matters to an evening of comedy.  Kathy LaTour, Cure Magazine editor, performed “One Mutant Cell,” a humorous account of her cancer journey, and comedian and cancer survivor, Scott Burton, a cancer offered comic relief with his juggling and stand-up act designed to confront the mystery and fear of chronic disease.  The laughter among the attendees, all living with cancer, filled the room.

Laughter is good for us.  It breaks the ice; relaxes us, builds community, and reminds us not to take ourselves quite so seriously.  Even in the midst of something as soul shattering as a cancer diagnosis, we can still find things that make us smile.  Laughter brightens the day and our outlook.  Laugh a little, and we all feel better.

It’s why, a week ago, I shared David Wagoner’s poem, “The Junior High School Band Concert” with one of my “Writing through Cancer” groups as the inspiration for writing that morning.

When our semi-conductor

Raised his baton, we sat there

Gaping at Marche Militaire,
Our mouth-opening number.
It seemed faintly familiar
(We’d rehearsed it all that winter),
But we attacked in such a blur,
No army anywhere
On its stomach or all fours
Could have squeezed though our cross fire…

I can never read Wagoner’s poem without laughing out loud, remembering all too well a particular band concert decades ago, when I and two other students comprised the French horn section in our high school band.  For much of the academic year, we were a marching band, parading around the football field as half-time entertainment, buttoned up in red and black uniforms, matching hats, all outfit adorned with gold braid.  I hated football season because of it—the brass mouthpiece like ice, bouncing against my lips, the monotony of the French horn accompaniment, a steady “um tah, um tah” on the after beat or a “ta, ti, ta, ti” while it seemed that all the other instruments were given more interesting and melodic parts.  To this day, I cringe at Souza marches, and I don’t follow football season.

In Springtime, however, life in the band improved.  We became a symphonic band—of sorts—and spring was preparation time for the regional high school band competition. That memorable year, we French horn players were to lead with the opening theme of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.”  We were positively beside ourselves, thrilled to finally have a brief, but major part in a musical score.  We practiced for weeks.

…And when the brass bulled forth
A blare fit to horn over
Jericho two bars sooner
Than Joshua’s harsh measures,
They still had the nerve to stare.

The day of the competition, we filed into the host school’s auditorium and onto the stage to take our places.  Our band leader, “Pop” Behnke, followed, looking proud and stately in his white uniform with the brass buttons and gold braid.  He tapped his baton against the music stand, we positioned our instruments and on cue, began playing.  Two of us had faithfully rehearsed for weeks, , but our third horn player, less inclined to regular practice, made up for the sour notes with an enthusiasm that overwhelmed us all.  We sounded the first notes of the “New World Symphony” like the horn blasts of a sinking ship…loud and without an ounce of modulation.  I glanced up and caught a glimpse of Pop Behnke’ s face—his look of shock, followed by a lopsided smile, the realization that any likelihood of our high school band walking away with the trophy had just evaporated.  Perhaps we knew we’d already lost then, but it seemed only to inspire us to play even more loudly, as if added volume could somehow tip the balance in our favor.  I still giggle when I think of it, although at the time, I don’t think we laughed much as the winners were announced– our band was not among them.

By the last lost chord, our director
Looked older and soberer.
No doubt, in mind’s ear
Some band somewhere
In some Music of some Sphere
Was striking a note as pure
As the wishes of Franz Schubert,
But meanwhile here we were:
A lesson in everything minor,
Decomposing our first composer.

(From Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems. © University of Illinois Press, 1999)

During our workshop, we read first Wagoner’s poem aloud before everyone wrote about a humorous event in their lives. When the group shared their narratives, the mood lightened; we giggled and guffawed as the humorous mishaps in everyone’s life were recounted.  Everyone left the session with smiles on thier faces.  Laughter was very good medicine—its healing benefits experienced by everyone.

Remember Norman Cousins’ famous account of how he used laughter  to cure himself of a debilitating illness?  It turns out, he wasn’t the first to advocate for the power of laughter. Mark Twain, whose wit and wisdom is an established part of American lore, wrote:  “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that’s laughter.  The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” Smiling and laughter are contagious.  Whether during cancer treatment or simply living a world be constantly dominated by hardship and struggle, it’s good to find something—even a small thing—to smile or laugh about.

As you write this week, dig back into your memories—the fun times, a time, perhaps you laughed so hard, tears ran down your cheeks.  Take a break from writing about cancer and the more serious topics of life.  Instead, try writing about something that makes you smile, even laugh out loud each time you remember it.  Laugh a little.  You’ll feel better.

Read Full Post »

For the Week of August 3, 2014: When Death Comes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 3, 2014 | 2 Comments »

“Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

(Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking)

His death was expected for these past many months, but now that it has happened, my heart is heavy as I think about my sister-in-law’s loss of her husband. Only yesterday afternoon, I drove to the airport to welcome my husband home after his long—and very delayed—flight from Okinawa, Japan, where he’d been visiting our daughter and her family.  Early morning, I returned him to the airport to fly north to Seattle to spend three days with his older sister, Joan.  It wasn’t a trip he’d planned or one he wanted to make under the circumstances, but during the long hours he was in the air, his flight already delayed by a day from a typhoon, his brother-in-law died after a four-year battle with bladder cancer.

I called Joan this morning after I’d taken him to the airport.  Her phone rang several times before I heard her voice, “Hello?”  She was crying and quickly apologized.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I just went into his room and saw how empty it is, and…”  She began sobbing again.

“Your brother is on his way,” I said.  “He just left from the airport, and he’ll be there after lunch.”

“Oh,” she said, “thank you.”  Then, “I’m sorry…he must be so tired…”

I watched him walk toward the gate, exhausted and jet-lagged from the long flight from Japan, doing what he felt he had to do.  Although their lives rarely intersected, he knew Joan needed him, that his presence would be comforting to her.  She and Ed, her husband, were high school sweethearts, marrying early despite the disapproval of her parents.  They had sixty-four years together as man and wife, weathering hardship and setbacks for much of their marriage, yet remaining steadfastly devoted to one another.

Just weeks before Edwin learned he had an aggressive Stage Four bladder cancer, Joan was diagnosed with Stage Three inflammatory breast cancer Somehow, the crises ignited strength and determination in Joan we hadn’t before experienced.  Only in the past year or so did her newfound resilience flagged, as Ed endured surgery after surgery, one experimental procedure after another and the medical expenses continued to multiply.  Her days were spent driving to and from doctor’s appointments and the hospital.  Now and again, her children dropped by to help as they could.  Edwin seemed determined to do whatever it took to give him a chance at winning a battle already described as most definitely terminal.

Joan and their four sons and daughters were at his side when he took his last breath.  She called soon afterward. “He’s gone, Sharon,” her voice heavy with exhaustion,  “He’s been my life for sixty-four years.”

 

It is hard to give up after months of making lists,

phoning doctors, fighting entropy.  But when the end comes,

a bending takes over, empties the blood of opposition

and with a gentle skill, injects a blessed numbness…

(From “Numb,” by Florence Weinberger, in The Cancer Poetry Project, 2001)

 

There’s a great deal written about dealing with the loss of a loved one from cancer, and while some may think of grief as a single instance or short time of pain or sadness in response to the loss—like the tears shed at a loved one’s funeral—as the American Cancer Society reminds us, the real process of grieving lasts longer and involves the entire emotional process of coping with the loss.

It can be hard on those friends or acquaintances, even family members, to let grief takes its normal courses.  It’s painful, yes, but it’s important that those whose loved ones have died are allowed to express their grief and supported through the process.  It’s different for everyone, but most important is honoring however the bereaved person chooses to express their sorrow and grief.  John, brother and psychologist, understands that, and in this time of sorrow for his sister, he will be a source of quiet support and comfort for his sister.

After sixty-four years together with Ed, Joan may be grieving for a long time.  According to the studies have identified emotional states that people may go through while grieving. The first feelings usually include shock or numbness. Then, as the person sees how his or her life is affected by the loss, emotions start to surface. The early sense of disbelief is often replaced by emotional upheaval, which can involve anger, loneliness, uncertainty, or denial. These feelings can come and go over a long period of time. The final phase of grief is the one in which people find ways to come to terms with and accept the loss.

Joan’s tears finally came this morning with the realization that Ed is truly gone.  Her daughter had tended to the details, overseen the removal of Ed’s body and all the medical equipment which had become part of the landscape of his room for so long.  It was only this morning, as Joan went downstairs and entered the bedroom, now barren and empty of everything that had defined the past year or so of Ed’s life and hers that she broke down.  “It’s so empty,” she cried.

Today my thoughts are with my sister-in-law and all that she has endured and must face in the wake of her husband’s death.  I’m grateful her four children are nearby.  I’m grateful for the quiet and loving presence she will experience with my husband, her brother.  There is nothing easy in losing a loved one, even if you’ve lived with the certainty of death for months.  My hope is that she can begin, in the months ahead, to create a new life in this stage called “widowhood.”  But for now, I simply pray that she has the strength to put one foot in front of the other and go on.

 

Perhaps this surrender foreshadows my own old age

when I have raged to exhaustion and finally have to go.  For now,

the numbness wears off.  I drive to the market, cook my own food,

take scant note of desire

with no one to consider or contradict my choices.

Something in me will never recover.  Something in me will go on.

 

This week, consider the process of grief and mourning.  Have you lost a loved one to cancer?  What helped you deal with the loss?  Write about it.

Read Full Post »

For the Week of June 22, 2014: Summer!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 22, 2014 | 2 Comments »

SumerIsIcumenIn-line

Summer is i-cumin in—

   Lhude sing, cuccu!

 

I found myself humming the old medieval round, “Summer is i-cummin in” as I sat outside early this morning, watching the marine layer melt away as the sun burned through it, listening the chirp and chatter of birds that populate the trees in the canyon beneath our deck with my dog on my lap, my coffee in my hand.  It was a glorious summer’s morning, and I remembered the carefree spirit of the ancient tune.

The official arrival of summer, the summer solstice, occurred early yesterday morning, and while our newscasts were filled with the sobering and relentless news of crises in the mid-east, many other people in the world were celebrating the advent of summer.  For example, some celebrated by attending the annual festival at Stonehenge, one that dates back thousands of years, and still draws modern druids and many others who are there to witness summer ‘s first sunrise. In the Scandinavian countries, midsummer celebrations, roots also dating back to the pagan celebration of summer solstice, with festivities, dancing, and parades occurred in towns and villages across Scandinavia.

I do not remember any solstice celebration during my childhood.  As far as we were concerned, summer began on the last day of school—whatever the date.  We practically danced home from school, bags loaded with the remains of the year: used pencils and erasers, notebooks and a certificate declaring we’d move to the next grade in the fall.  We were filled with excitement and anticipation.  Summer meant two months of holiday, of long days and evenings when the sun lingered in the sky.  It meant running through the sprinklers on hot days, softball played until dusk on neighborhood streets, and after dinner drives to the local Fosters’ Freeze for soft ice cream.  Summer was picnics and watermelon.  It was Sundays spent swimming and boating on a nearby lake.  It was a time of abandonment and freedom.

Summer was synonymous with new adventures:  picking blackberries, catching butterflies and lizards, turning Manzanita bushes into fortresses, looking for buried treasure, or, with the gang of neighborhood children, creating summer theater, circus acts and parades for our parents.

Looking back, I am filled with longing for the freedom, the curiosity, and the sense of immortality that children possess, the utter joy in lying down in tall grasses to find faces or shapes in the clouds that dotted the blue sky above us.  We lived in the moment, and every summer’s day was rife with new possibility.

I think about those carefree days as summer begins, and how, in a climate that is dominated by sunshine, I know I will soon beg to escape to an air-conditioned room as the predictable heat waves arrive.  Summer, in these parts, is also synonymous with the danger of wildfires.  Couple that with the nightly news casts of drought or tornadoes, flooding and mudslides in other parts of the country, and summer loses some of the appeal I once remember.

It’s easy to forget what summer once held, what it promised when I was a child.  It’s much too easy, in adulthood, to become consumed by the demands of daily life,  far too easy to forget how precious life is, how glorious a sunny day can be, how much is changing in front of our eyes while we, heads down and eyes on our screens, barely notice.

“Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?” Mary Oliver asks in her poem, “The Summer Day.”   As I read her words, I think that perhaps I should lie down in tall grasses, eat a popsicle and feel the juice drip down my chin, or simply sit on the porch swing and sing the song I once knew by heart:  “Summer is a ‘coming in, loudly sing cu-cu!”  What about you?  What will you do this summer, as Oliver challenges, with your one wild and precious life?

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

(In:  The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays, Beacon Press, 2008).

Read Full Post »

For June 15, 2014: Fathers and Those Who Become Them

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2014 | 4 Comments »

In our household, Father’s Day arrives just days after my birthday, and this year, the advent of my newest decade more than overshadowed any planning or celebration for my husband.  He’s stepfather to my daughters, and predictably, he “poo-poos” the event, saying, “it’s not important,” describing it as “just an excuse for commercialism,” but he “doth protest too much, methinks,” especially as I witness his complete delight as he opens a greeting card or hears a grandchild’s voice on the telephone recite the well-rehearsed “Happy Father’s Day Grandpa!”

In the article, “Father’s Day:  Even the cards are different,” which appeared in a 2008 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune, reporter Jenifer Godwin wrote:  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.

Godwin cited a number of statistics to show the contrast between how we celebrate mothers and fathers, for example, more cards are sent to mothers on Mother’s Day and more money is spent on mothers’ gifts.  In fact, Father’s Day wasn’t even  an official holiday until 1972, over a half century after the official designation of Mother’s Day.  Add one more layer of complexity to this state of lesser remembrance, that of being a stepfather, and I suspect we’d find even greater disparity.

I guess it was the telephone call from one daughter early this morning, wishing J. a “Happy Father’s Day,” that got me reconsidering this post.  I always think of my father on this day, and I am just as certain my daughters pause to remember theirs, my first husband, whose life was cut short while the girls were still in elementary school.   But as I listened to J.’s laughter, his voice full of delight as he chatted with E. and our granddaughter, I began to think of the extraordinary influence he, as stepfather, has had both girls; how he so willingly embraced two teenagers into his life and weathered the “sturm und drang” of adolescence with as much commitment as any birth father.

We laugh together now about some of the stormier interactions, how one or the other daughter tested him at various times and fiercely reminded him that he was not “Dad” nor would he ever be.  Yet he responded with grace and the ability to dance that conflicted tango of step-fatherhood, of “I love you”—“don’t even think that I love you” that often defined those first years as a reconstituted family.  Little by little, the relationship between J. and the girls deepened and grew, and without any fanfare, their bond solidified.  “This is my father,” E. said as she introduced him to her high school French teacher three years later.  I stifled a gasp.  J. simply extended his hand to say hello, but I saw his eyes tear up for a moment.

J. has been instrumental in igniting one daughter’s interest and career in international community development.  When E. traveled to rural Thailand on her first work project, J. was working on a development project in Laos.  He made a 36 hour stop in Bangkok and took a twelve-hour bus trip to her village to share a meal together with her host family, before returning to Bangkok to fly on to Laos.  As our second daughter struggled with low self-esteem and fear of academia, he patiently accompanied her from community college to community college, until gradually, she had the courage to enroll.  He discussed readings and research with her as she steered her studies toward psychology and anthropology.  For the duration of her undergraduate years, C. never earned less than an “A” –even in the statistics courses she feared so much.  J. was coach and mentor, and I thrilled as I witnessed her blossoming and growing self-confidence.

This Father’s Day, I honor all fathers and their importance in our lives, but today,  I’ll be celebrating my husband with gratitude for  his patient and loving contribution to my daughters’ lives and my own.   He is friend, companion, mentor, and has become more father that anyone, including him, could have imagined.

He wasn’t hard on us kids,
never struck us…

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)

Today I remember how deeply important fathers have been in my life and my daughters’, and whether fond or complicated, the memories of our fathers are full of stories.  Write one.  And to all the fathers—whether those who helped to birth us or those who were “like” fathers–who had a lasting and loving influence in our lives, Happy Father’s Day.

Read Full Post »

For the Week of June 8, 2014: For the Love of Dogs

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , pets and health, , , , on June 8, 2014 | 5 Comments »

[C]ountering [Darwin’s] view comes a new view of dog history, more in keeping with our own ostentatiously less man-centered world view. Dogs, we are now told, by a sequence of scientific speculators … domesticated themselves. They chose us.  (“Dog Story,” by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, August 8, 2011)

She chose me.   She bears little resemblance to the canine companion I envisioned for myself, finally ready, after several months since our toy poodle’s death, to bring another dog into our house.  I enlisted the help of my neighbor, a former veterinary assistant and now, dog caretaker and spent hours each day for the past week or two, searching the pictures of homeless dogs posted by the many adoption sites in the San Diego area.  “Bigger than Kramer,” I said, eyeing the sites for Wheaten or West Highland terriers.  “Not neurotic,” I added, since Kramer, for all his lovability, was by far the most neurotic of all my dogs.  “Calm,” I said, wistfully remembering how Winston, the Westie who inhabited our lives until his death at 17, was content to lie at my feet while I wrote or plop on the footstool beside me in the evenings.   I filled out applications for four different animal rescue organizations and narrowed the search to three different dogs, a poodle-terrier mix, a miniature schnauzer (chosen for his cuteness factor), and a doe-eyed terrier mix of unknown origin.

“Why do you want another dog?”  My friend, S., posed the question as our Friday writing group was ending.  Why indeed?  Whatever answer I gave was disjointed and vague.  I did, that’s all.  I’ve always had a dog since we adopted Tico, a toy terrier mix, when I was just beginning high school.  He was more attached to my kid brother than anyone, and as small as he was, he  possessed a Napoleonic ego, taking on large German Shepards at regular intervals.  But Tico saved my brother’s life near the end of his own, awakening him when our family house caught fire, and minutes before his bedroom was engulfed in flame.

Bismarck, an adopted Irish setter, moved from California to Canada with me.  Many ears later, when we planned our return to California,  we found a home for Odie, part Bearded Collie and English Sheepdog, and months later, he was the featured dog in an article in a Canadian children’s magazine.  Winston, our adopted Westie, joined us two years later and became the companion for my muse, present during the intense weeks of writing on the Mendocino Coast as I worked on my first book and then the second.  Kramer, though beloved, was more my husband’s dog than mine, never content to sit still in my lap unless he could shower my face with dog kisses, and yet, when he died, my heart ached for weeks afterward.  Why did I want a dog?  Because I did…because I missed the companionship I feel with a dog.  It was as good of an answer as I could give my friend.

Cats or dogs, it hardly matters.  Our pets are good for us.  A recent post on the Web MD site states:  “… for nearly 25 years, research has shown that living with pets provides certain health benefits. Pets help lower blood pressure and lessen anxiety. They boost our immunity. They can even help you get dates.  Well, whether or not you’re looking for a way to meet a potential dating partner, pets do a lot for us besides helping us overcome shyness or isolation.

  • There’s evidence to suggest that exposure to a pet during infancy may reduce the risk of allergies.
  • The act of petting an animal can lower our blood pressure.
  • Dogs are de-stressors.”  Playing with a dog helps to relieve stress, increasing serotonin and dopamine, nerve transmitters with pleasurable and calming effects.
  • Heart attack patients who have pets survive longer than those without them.
  • Dog owners are to be more likely to exercise regularly, and among adolescents, having a dog can increase their level of activity.
  • Walking a dog or caring for a pet provides companionship and exercise for the elderly.  Even Alzheimer’s patients have fewer anxious outbursts if an animal is present.  Simply watching fish in an aquarium has helped to increase patients’ attentiveness.

But it wasn’t my health I was thinking about as I drove to a local Petco for the Saturday dog adoption.  I was meeting one of the dogs I’d applied for, that doe-eyed terrier mix.  You’ve guessed the rest by now.  Maggie (her new moniker) looks nothing like the dog I had imagined for myself.  She’s three, was abandoned with a litter of her puppies, and isn’t going to win any beauty contests.  Oh, her face is sweet, and those eyes?  Huge and captivating.  But she’s smaller than any dog I’ve ever had (except perhaps Tico).  Her fur defies grooming, and although I’m taking her to the dog groomer this week, I suspect V. will be as perplexed over what cut to give her as I am.  She’s  not well proportioned, the result of that “unknown” origin.  Small boned and petite, her mid-section resembles a dachshund’s.  And yet…and yet.  When I picked her up from the crate, she trembled violently until I held her in my arms.  Then she curled into my chest with her head resting on my shoulder, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  I didn’t have any say in the matter.  Like I said before, she chose me.

He puts his cheek against mine

and makes small expressive sounds…

 

he turns upside-down, his four paws

in the air

and his eyes dark and fervent.

 

“Tell me you love me,” he says…

(From:  “Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night,” in Dog Songs, Poems by Mary Oliver,2013)

Maggie is asleep at my feet as I write this blog post, already cementing our daily habits.  Me, at the computer.  She, content to lie nearby until I push the chair back and stand.  Then she’s on her feet in seconds, ever attentive, tag wagging, and eyes searching my face.  “So what’s next,” she seems to say.  I smile and think back to the New Yorker essay by Adam Gopnik. “How does anyone live without a dog?” He asks as he concludes the article, before he answers:  “I can’t imagine.”

Maggie

Maggie

Read Full Post »

For the Week of June 1, 2014: Seasons in Life; Seasons in Cancer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

When the song, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” was recorded released in 1965 by the rock group, The Byrds, I was a college student caught up in the idealism and fervor of the sixties.  The lyrics were nearly verbatim from Ecclesiastes (3:1) of the King James Version of the Bible, but the song captured the sentiments of the time and quickly became number one on Billboard’s “Hot 100.”  The Byrds weren’t the first to record the song.  Earlier versions  by the Limelighters and Pete Seeger preceded the Byrd’s hit recording.  Over the next several years, many other artists recorded the song, including Judy Collins, Joe Cocker, The Seekers, Dolly Parton, and Nina Simone.  Is it any wonder?  The words from Ecclesiastes describe life’s journey, the inevitability of its cycles and seasons, the story of the entire lifespan.

Seasons have been on my mind a lot lately, triggered, in part, by witnessing the “coming out” of springtime in Toronto, realizing how much I miss the distinct change in seasons, and, later this month,  the passing of another decade in my life.  In the book, The Seasons of Life:  Our Dramatic Journey from Birth to Death, authors John Kotre and Elizabeth Hall describe how seasons are metaphors for life’s journey and how human life is intimately connected to the seasons of nature:  times of day, circling of the planets, phases of the moon, or growth and harvesting of the crops (University of Michigan Press, 1997).  In fact, the ancient Greeks used seasons to define life’s stages: childhood was spring; youth became summer; autumn described adulthood, and winter, the metaphor for old age.

The cyclical nature of life and living reflects what we witness in nature. I think of being in the autumn of my life now, described in a French Canadian film I saw many years ago as “the other side of spring.”  My life is still colorful, still vibrant, but I know the colors will gradually fade as I move toward winter, the years of elderhood and old age.

There are other aspects of life—and illness—that are described by seasons, including cancer.  In a 2009 article in Cure Today, Kenneth Miller, MD  described four distinct phases or “seasons” of cancer survivorship.

  1. Acute survivorship: when a person is diagnosed and treated.
  2. Transitional survivorship: when celebration is blended with worry and loss as a patient pulls away from the treatment team.
  3. Extended survivorship: includes those who are living with cancer as a chronic disease and individuals in remission because of ongoing treatment.
  4. Permanent survivorship: people who are in remission and asymptomatic, or,
    cancer-free but not free of cancer because of chronic late and long-term health or psychosocial problems. Others may even develop secondary cancers related to cancer treatment, or develop second cancers not related to the first cancer or its treatment.

Miller’s observations were informed not only by his patients’ experiences, but also by his wife’s.  He compared her stages of cancer and recovery to the seasons of nature:

I have learned just as much about cancer and the seasons of survivorship in my work as a medical oncologist as I have alongside my wife, Joan, he wrote, who was treated 10 years ago for acute leukemia and more recently for breast cancer. Her diagnosis was certainly like the cold, bleak winter, and transition like the rebirth of spring. And while each season was different than the others, each was beautiful in its own way. (http://www.curetoday.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/article.show/id/2/article_id/1142)

It turns out that seasons may be more than metaphors in the cancer journey.  In a 2007 study, researchers from Norway and Oregon found evidence suggesting that men diagnosed with prostate cancer in summer or autumn had better survival rates (see:http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/80625.php for more details).  Vitamin D—the sunshine vitamin–plays a part.  In other studies with early stage lung cancer patients,  high concentrations of Vitamin D appeared to contribute to a better survival rate post-surgery.  Patients whose surgeries occurred in sunny months (May – August) had a 30% higher survival rate than those who had surgery in winter. “Season,” epidemiologist David Christiani noted, “had a pretty strong effect.”

()

Whether we’re diagnosed or treated with cancer in summer or winter, the seasons of our illness can dominate our lives.  Marilyn Hacker’s 1994 collection of poetry, Winter Numbers, invokes the darkness and cold of winter as she details the loss of many of her friends to AIDS or cancer as she struggled with breast cancer.  Dan Matthews, using seasons as metaphor, chronicled the journey of his wife’s terminal breast cancer in a poetry collection,  Rain, Heavy at Times: Life in the Cancer Months (Arago Publishing, 2007).  John Sokol wrote about his cancer in a poetry collection entitled In the Summer of Cancer.  And in one of my favorite poems by Barbara Crocker, “For a Friend Lying in Intensive Care Waiting For Her White Blood Cells to Rejuvenate After a Bone Marrow Transplant,” the season of springtime signals a time renewal and rejuvenation:

The jonquils. They come back. They split the earth with

their green swords, bearing cups of light. ‘

The forsythia comes back, spraying its thin whips with

blossom, one loud yellow shout.

The robins. They come back. They pull the sun on the

silver thread of their song.

The iris come back. They dance in the soft air in silken

gowns of midnight blue.

The lilacs come back. They trail their perfume like a scarf

of violet chiffon.

And the leaves come back, on every tree and bush, millions

and millions of small green hands applauding your return.

(From:  The Cancer Poetry Project, 2007, www.cancerpoetryproject.com)

This week, think about how seasonal metaphors describe your life.  Write about the seasons of your life, whether the cancer journey, a marriage, loss and grief, adulthood– any of life’s seasons that have been important or significant to you in some way.

Read Full Post »

For the Week of May 18, 2014: Choices

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

…two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(From “The Road Less Traveled,” by Robert Frost)

It’s a familiar poem, one you were likely introduced to it in a high school English class.  Frost’s portrayal of a traveler choosing a direction as he comes to the fork in a road, is a metaphor for life. We make choices daily, between one thing or the other, weighing the benefits, costs, and risks.  Sometimes we play it safe; other times we do as  Frost’s traveler did, and we take the road “less traveled by.”

I’ve been mulling over choices—ones made nearly 25 years ago, when my husband and I decided to return to California from Canada—and now considering the possibility of a return as we move toward the ambiguous concept of “retirement.”  We want to be closer to family, to grandchildren, and yet, we’ve spent the past 25 years building careers and making new friends in California.  Like those many years ago, our feelings are conflicted.  I long to be in Toronto, while my husband much prefers the warmer climate of Southern California.

“You can’t go home again,” Tom Wolfe once said, but all those years ago, my longing for what I called “home” was so great, his words were just words, ones that surely didn’t apply to me.  We made our decision, packed up our belongings and left for the California we’d known as youth.  It wasn’t an easy return.  The California of memory was far different from the California we encountered, and I have never rediscovered that sense of belonging or home I’d once taken for granted.  I had to admit that Tom Wolfe may have been right.

I came to Toronto at the beginning of the month, a trip my husband and I agreed was the necessary prelude to our decision-making process.  Of course, Toronto is not the city we left so many years ago, but I’ve delighted in walking through neighborhoods that are still familiar, visit old friends and recall shared memories, and discover that my heart still resides here, despite the years I’ve been away from it.

Yet, the days are sometimes a roller coaster ride of emotion:  joy of having time with my daughter and granddaughter, the ease of being with old friends, the long walks around the city, then the shock of Toronto’s the housing market or trying to consider living in, nearby communities which are more affordable than Toronto’s.  I return to my rental apartment each night feeling the decision-making has only become more muddied and complicated than I thought possible, and I sink into bed exhausted and more than a little overwhelmed by all we have to consider.

In the poem, “Decision,” by Jane Hirshfield, we find the theme of choices—and change.

There is a moment before a shape
hardens, a color sets.
Before the fixative or heat of kiln.
The letter might still be taken
from the mailbox…

She describes the moment of choice:

Yet something slips through it—
looks around,
sets out in a new direction, for other lands.

…Simply changed.
As a sandy track-rut changes when called a Silk Road:
it cannot be after turned from.

(From:  Poetry, May 2008, p.110)

 Ah, those forks in the road, and the choices we must make, weighing one possibility against the other.  Our hearts wage war with our minds, our dreams with reality.  Ultimately, we have to decide on one course of action over another. To do nothing means stagnation.   Whatever our decision, we live out our choices, our lives changed by what we have chosen.

I’ll return to California at the end of the week.  My mind will be as heavy as my suitcase, weighted down with choices to be made.  I’ll say this: life doesn’t get any easier as we age.  There are always are choices, this thing or that, this way or the other, yet I trust that the road to be chosen will become clearer in time.

A day or so after I arrived in Toronto, a friend forwarded a poem to several of her friends, I among them.  Maybe some greater force guided the poem to my inbox just as I began my information gathering, because it resonated so deeply with me; I’ve kept a copy, reading the final two stanzas over and over since.

May my mind come alive today
to the invisible geography
that invites me to new frontiers,
to break the dead shell of yesterdays,
to risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
to live the life that I would love,
to postpone my dream no longer
but do at last what I came here for
and waste my heart on fear no more.

(by John O’Donohue, “A Morning Offering,” in:  To Bless the Space Between Us:  A  Book of Blessings, 2008)

Life poses many decision points, requires us to make choices, big and small, many times in our lives.  When have you come to a fork in the road, faced difficult choices and had to choose between them?   Were you afraid?  Why?  Did your head or your heart guide you?  Write about it, describing the event, what helped you choose, and how that decision has changed or affected your life.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

Follow