heart in the halt
Once upon a lifetime ago I lived in a one bedroom apartment not too far from where I now call home. Whenever I drive by that first floor set of windows on the corner, I say a little prayer, beam a little love for the person now living there—for whatever he or she is doing in life, experiencing in that space. Why? Because I think on who I was when I called that spot home—the life lessons learned alongside the sights I set on chapters to come. That little apartment is across from a lovely little spot called Cancer Survivor’s Park. In all my footloose, carefree living near there days, I never imagined that a years later version of me would—one Good Friday—extend her usual walk route to stroll through that space as someone on the other side of knowing.
If it’s possible to ‘miss’ anything about cancer, I miss this: the Wednesday routine of time with my sisters and my Dad. We got things pretty down pat as we moved through those weeks—who would drive me to, who would keep me company, which Lumenkind tattoos we’d sport, and who would hang with the kids while I crashed post treatment.
While sitting on our porch this past weekend, the Easter Sunday calendar reminder pinged on my screen. Seeing that made my eyes water, made me miss so immensely the family faces we’d normally be meeting up with on Sunday. We’ve got those family dinners pretty down pat too—it’s just been a while since we’ve enjoyed one together.
I think on all this for a couple reasons:
- That in the terribleness of cancer was the beauty of togetherness—family and friends who could support, who tucked near, who would rally my spirits while also being there for my husband and our kids.
- That in the awfulness that is this virus there are people who are alone—by virtue of a living situation, because they are on the front lines and taking measures that protect loved ones, because they’re receiving any level of medical care that leaves them healing, surviving, even dying on their own.
That’s when it all tearfully got to me—on my Good Friday walk when The Daily podcast was bringing to life so much of the aloneness in all of this.
What wrenching scenarios this virus is creating.
What opportunities for appreciating it is offering.
One of the weirdest hurdles—that I never really got over throughout my cancer tour—was that my body was hosting a disease that I could not see. Sure, the doctors could pull up imagery on a screen, could detail where the growths were in my mediastinal cavity, and then could show the beloved progress of chemo doing its job. But that I couldn’t see it shrinking before me with my own eyes, that I couldn’t touch a scar where healing took place? That felt like a limbo land of suspension—hope-fueled faith and trust that staying the course would get me to where I needed to be. …and keep me there.
This current world-wide crisis reminds me of that. We cannot see the virus moving about, we are having to press into routines anew, we’re needing to trust that the path we’re on will correct in ways life-giving. This time, though, it’s an effort not just for self but for ALL—all being a good many we’ll never know, all being those who are giving their all to help keep us healthy and safe.
I remember my best friend, a doctor, telling me last year how helpless she felt in not being there for me. She lives a couple states away, so regular presence wasn’t possible. She wasn’t the one sick, so she couldn’t do the chemo for me. She only could offer from afar her support, love, concern, and care as a sounding board dependable and true. Right now, from the comfort of my home, I feel the same about her and all the medical friends I love. I cannot hands on ‘do’ anything to help them right now. This staying put while winging hope and prayers out into the universe challenges my spirit that prefers a sleeves rolled up approach.
It does not feel foreign for me to distance, though, to tuck into home, to be with my immediate people in the spirit of care and counts. When you have to adopt such measures during months of chemo, such a knowing returns like a familiar friend. What’s been interesting to think on, though, is that this spring is a chapter and effort known to everyone. Even with our side helpings unique, the main course is being served up all around. We’re having to center down, maybe greet things, people, feelings in our immediate space that the hustle and bustle of life often blurs at our usual pace. How often in life does that happen—that we universally share in a true knowing of what another is having to accept and experience on the whole? We cannot step into another’s diagnosis, marriage, parenting, employment, or history, but this tour allows for each of us to share in joint hopes as we support—even from distance.
If you’ve felt off kilter, if you’ve felt helpless in your ability to hurry to an answer—from what’s for dinner to how best to support, if you’ve felt any and all the things in a matter of minutes, that sounds about right. If you feel those most keenly around the 3am hour, that makes sense to me too. Let whatever rises in your spirit ride whatever wave you’re feeling on any given day, in any given moment. Tomorrow might feel lighter, an hour later might bring the ping of a text from a friend who sends just the right encouragement or laugh. The birds still will chirp come morning, the sun—God love it—will rise.
I last year thought that I’d read all the books, binge all the shows, tackle all the things on the weeks when I was feeling well. Guess how many things I ticked of the list? Not a lotta. Guess what streak is still going strong? In fact, at spring’s start this year, I felt stuck on how to even tackle a stacked up year of feeling like I’d fallen behind. Then the slow roll of locking down, hunkering home arrived. Just two days before we put a halt on life beyond our house with others, I was talking with someone about where to even begin. “One thing a day,” she encouraged. “One drawer, one note, one anything—and call it good.” Her wisdom maybe resonated because it reminded me of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird encouragement, a permission slip I pass along to you, too, as you figure your days:
“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
If I’ve learned anything from life’s hard stops, it’s that the heart can weather just about anything on the wings of hope, of encouragement, of connection, of love—and that it can continue to heal in tending to those parts essential. That’s what this upended Easter season means to me this year—a knowing of what’s been, staying the course of hope for what will be, and holding fast to the simplest of joys as we journey onward.