June 18, 2006
On this morning of Father’s Day, ’06, I am filled with delight and gratitude for life. My prayer of thanksgiving to God for present blessings is long, and it begins with the gift of Charles, who smiles and says that Hallmark invented this day to sell cards. I tend to disagree because most of the Father’s Day cards are illustrated with boats, golf clubs, fish, guns, cars, or ducks, showing a great lack of imagination in subject matter for fathers in general. I found a delightful card that was none of the above, and sadly, in very small print that I missed, it said, “Happy Birthday”. Unfortunately, his eyesight is far better, and it was the first thing he read, out loud. Tsk. I blacked it out with a felt tipped pen immediately, but the moment was already lost.
The litany continues: For a remission of cancer that has returned much of my energy and given me days of joy and happiness, Thanks be to God.
For children who have blessed me hugely with their concern and wisdom and for friends who come with books, food, companionship, stories, and encouraging words, Thanks be to God.
For the many people that care and the many voices that pray in unison and in still inner voices, Thanks be to God.
For a natural world that is mine to see and experience – sunrises, songs of birds and crickets, fireflies at dusk, red cardinals, orange orioles, yellow finches, bluejays, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and many more creatures and colors – all parts of a fantastic creation, Thanks be to God.
For kind and caring nurses, good doctors, and medicines that make it possible to move forward in hope. Thanks be to God.
And finally, for all those blessings that are mine that I don’t even know about, or don’t fully appreciate, Thanks be to God!
After the white blood count came out of the basement to a level that made human interaction acceptable, we have had a good number of visitors, including friends who have come many miles to say hello and how are you. Our conversations inevitably come to the subject of having an incurable cancer, and how one deals with that reality, particularly as it relates to God. “Are you angry at God?” one asks, and the answer to that is an emphatic “No!” because such an emotion would imply that God is the selector of who is to be afflicted and who is not. I think this subject is one which humanity keeps picking up and studying from all angles, and there never is a satisfactory conclusion. When we come to the unfathomable, it is time to move on in faith, letting God’s mind be the mystery it will ever be. Some contemporary writers who address illness and suffering and God will say that they consider the illness a “blessing” because then there are the prayers of so many, and the opportunity to review priorities. This is another very foreign point of view in my mind because I can’t ever consider pain a blessing. When I was researching an essay that I was writing, I read about controlling physical suffering as it was practiced in the medical community and was astonished to read that the concept of pain as a good thing carried on right into the early 20th Century. Then it was thought that it was either a sign that you were being punished by God or, if you were a good and upright person, a sign that you were being honed into a higher state by the gift of suffering. Women weren’t given anything to ease the trials of childbirth because it was thought that the pain would make them better mothers. And so on. What a fine thing it is to live now, when such ideas have been set aside, and a far more compassionate ethos rules. Both Charles and I agree that good things have come of the advent of MDS in our lives, and we give thanks for them; but we aren’t inclined to say that it has been a blessing. 
I have been in remission for nearly a month, with good days and bad in that time. One of the things I have discovered is that the internal chemical wash of drugs means that I have to be very careful about imbibing alcoholic beverages; if I drink more that a small amount of wine, for example, I find myself having most memorable muscle spasms of both upper and lower legs as the night moves on. I have termed these “Liquor taxes” and have determined to resist more fully the temptations of the fine wines that have arrived at our house in the hands of friends and family alike. 
Each morning, at breakfast, we measure out our “meds” into little crystal saltcellars that accompany us to the table. There, between the fruit and the cereal, we begin to swallow the heavy-duty prescription pills, the vitamin supplements and the other items purported to improve our skin, joints, memories, and general well being. My brother says that his pills are of such volume that he has two breakfasts, and I recall entering a doctor’s office where the request was to bring the medications one was presently taking and seeing a woman with a large plastic bag full to the brim. At the time I felt a little smug about my small collection, but now I am beginning to think that soon I will need two “pill pots” to start my day. Since I am convinced that my contemporaries are also consuming great stacks of medications, all quietly and without comment, it doesn’t bother me greatly. 
Our summer birds that have come to this place to rear their families are suddenly hitting the feeders with a vengeance. Today, we watched two red-winged blackbirds frenetically grabbing up seeds and carrying them to four fledges lined up in a row on the top of the arbor on the west side of the lawn. The fledges were all wide open beaks, flittering wings, and instant squawks as soon as the parent birds turned around to get more food. There is always a recalling of our own experiences of early parenthood in the sight of this, and we smile. I don’t know whether birds ever are left off the hook on this one, where they can one day just sit on the line and say, “We’re glad that’s over with. . .” I suspect they are compelled to reenact this force of nature year after year until they expire.
How splendid it is to come to the morning and realize that the nightly aches and pains that moved through the body with such creative selection of bone and tissue have greatly diminished. (For a time, I became convinced that several of my teeth were dying because of the throbbing in the jaw). I tell myself, “Remember, oh you must remember now that these things will come to an end” because I still have the sixth round of chemotherapy with its attendant havoc to the body ahead of me. Even as I write these words, countless gallons of the chemicals discovered and created to help defer cancer’s dying are being infused and injected into grateful persons because they are the only known route to healing and remission. These same chemicals carry in them toxicity that is strong enough to put nurses behind huge aprons and into large rubber gloves, and the contents in turn can take out hair, give face spots, cause nausea or have innumerable other side effects. The bottom line that brings us all to “do what we have to do” is the grand possibility of life resumed, or life extended. How thankful we are for that!
Sanctuary is moving away from the new bright colors of spring into dark greens and the rich hues of reproduction. Now there is honeysuckle in the woods, with chokecherries, flea bane, elderberries and wild roses blooming along the paths and on the edges of the wetlands. When Alphie and I walked shortly after dawn, the new sunlight was coming through the cream colored bloomstalks on the head-high grasses that line the path on the west side of the forty acres. It brought to mind the patterns in fine laces and embroideries seen on elegant clothing. Perhaps it all began in some meadow long ago when someone figured out how to use needle and thread to transfer the innate beauty of the humble grass’s offerings into the finest decorations and adornments still cherished today.