- A nearly perfect weekend at Hollyhock retreat centre on Cortes Island with old and new friends. Sunshine, food that tasted like heaven, running into more old friends in the ferry terminal, and an inspiration-filled bus ride back to the Okanagan.
- One night of chemo hell. I’ll spare you the details, but it sucked.
- Walking into Rhizome Cafe and finding it half-full with an assortment of friends.
- A celebration of appreciation for Mom at St. Andrew’s United Church in Enderby, including beautiful words, her favourite hymns and a cake with a pig on it.
- Consulting with a naturopathic oncologist who has helped me prioritize the overwhelming amount of natural cancer treatment info that is out there.
- Committing to (pretty much) give up sugar and flour. Time to yank my sweet tooth.
The dosage has been reduced for Round 2 of chemo. Half-way through this round - so far so good.
I’m appreciating a book called ‘Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death’ by Joan Halifax. As my imagination warmed up, the following writing exercise became very powerful...
- “What is your worst case scenario for how you will die?” Write from your most uncensored, uncorrected state for about five minutes, paying attention to physical and emotional feelings as you write.
- Repeat the exercise with the question, “How do you really want to die?”
Allowing myself to freely imagine my own death, especially in beautiful ways, has helped me to imagine beautiful ways of being with others in their dying.
Less fear. Less sugar and refined carbohydrates. More openness to death and to life.
Wade - you and your family are truly inspiring. So glad that you have such a loving community to support you, and glad to be a part of it!
ReplyDeleteWhat a powerful thing to consider - imagining your own death both negatively and positively. Will have to think this through - would love to discuss with you sometime.
Thanks for sharing!
Love and hugs - Dave Namkung
Wade, I love your ability to hold both-and in your hands... rather like your picture in your first post- (the lilacs and the chemo pills.) Holding life and death, beauty and illness, crappy chemo nights and appreciation of loving community. There's some saying (that I forget) about our ability to hold contradictions being a sign of wisdom... I hear lots of wisdom in your journey these days... and immense amounts of courage.
ReplyDeleteMay you feel the web of loving community gathered and holding you and yours as you continue this walk. I love you.
PS... I love this book by Halifax too...it's pretty wonderful. Kerri
Wade
ReplyDeleteYour witness is such a powerful lived portrait of what I was trying to say at the conclusion of yesterday's sermon, namely: "This is how we will speak of shortage and ending and death. We will dare to name the troubles we know because we live out of an abiding astonishment in God’s power to make new."
God bless you (and your Mother!)
Ed
Wade, my dear friend! How I miss you -- haven't seen you in much too long! And since I hear that a virtual word in the blogosphere is worth three in the material world, here I write...
ReplyDeleteWonderful ruminations and meditations. I think the death writing is an extraordinarily powerful exercise, confronting the deepest of fears and pondering that big un/known question about how best to cross that Stygian river.
Had a haunting dream last night about losing everything and then losing myself in the dark with some terrible beat (thump-thump) stalking me. Forced myself awake, in one of those delirious middle-of-the-night-wake-up-spooked-and-just-wanting-to-return-to-elysian-fields-of-peaceful-uninterrupted-sleep-but-ooooh-no-not-yet feelings, and I found myself alone in bed. I just lay there, willing myself not to budge until I knew where I was, till I knew I was safe... At the risk of repeating myself: I was alone. Brent has a tendency to wander in the nighttime and I only found him when I finally gathered up the guts to roll over, face the room full of dark, and wander through the apartment on my lonesome. He was dozing on the couch, as he does, sawing his logs softly by the wide open window, Frasier flickering on the television. He wouldn't wake up, of course (envy the deep sleepers), so I returned to bed alone again, thinking about how he wandered off into the dark only to fall asleep by an open window; I stayed right where I was and hit all that inner turmoil without moving an inch.
I suppose we all must find our way out of the dark. I'm honoured, Wade, to hear your stories of whistling your way through it -- even when the whistling has a groan or two thrown in to fill out the woodwind section. And I shall tune in again for this particular blog-o-rama, my dear Wade-o-rama!
xo
Chris
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*Paraphrases/References:
-Bird in the hand proverb
-Material Girl, by Madonna
-Elysian Fields and the River Styx, by The Greeks (Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, &c.)
-Wade the Wise
-Whistling in the dark = Hope (real or imagined - now there's a philosophical question!)