Now That My Cancer Has Returned. . . .

I sing . . . . I always enjoyed singing, but now I sing all the time. It's almost impossible to sing a full-throated note and be tied up by fear at the same time.

I sing all sorts of songs from hymns, ballads, pop, blues, rock, folk and some opera (look out Americas got Talent) . . . . anything that comes to mind. I even make up crazy songs as I go along. Sometimes the words make sense and sometimes not. Sometimes they rhyme, other times not. Some have familiar tunes, but most I make up as I go along!

After one of my first surgeries I could not sing. The muscles in my abdomen where spending all their energy just trying to help me breath. My diaphragm had little or no power. It was all I could do to get word out of my mouth.

Well I decided that if that where all I could do, that's what I would do! It is better to sing a small tiny song than no song at all!

Like most doors that close this one caused another to open. since I could not than and even now sing all that well, I began to compose. All though compose might not be the right word to use, it was more like I started to "adjust" songs.

I like to sing these "adjusted" song while I'm in the shower. That has always been the safest place. As I wash my hair, I sing, "Gonna wash that cancer right out of myself... and send it on its way." I adjusted the spiritual "Oh,Freedom." I sing, "No more cancer. No more cancer. No more cancer inside of me. And before I'll be a slave, I'll put cancer in its grave, and go home to my Lord, and be free." To the tune of " If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands" I sing I'm glad I'm a little cake of soap. Than repeating, I'll slippie and I'll slidie all over my hidie and I'll wash the cancer off with my soap!!

OK, its all right to go ahead and say it. . . . these songs are pretty bad! But as they are just for my hearing they work.

Singing dose not automatically wash the cancer from this body of mine. Although it might help, who knows? I do know that it helps to take away my fear.

You just can't sing and be afraid at the same time. That's why we sing in the dark. It is also very difficult to sing and awfulize at the same time. Awfulizing (I made this word up. . . I think?) is the process of imagining all the awful things that might happen to us. We spend more time at it than we realize. The less awfulizing we do, the more likely we are to get well. The immune system doesn't like awfulizing. My immune system does like singing. Even mine!

Singing is as natural as loving. They are very closely related. . . . two limbs of the same tree trunks, one root system. Together they spread out a canopy of shade.

Both those limbs get weather-beaten, however. They are besieged by frost, drought, parasites and blight. It's a wonder they survive at all, and in some people they do not. But their tree is rooted deep in the soil of the Spirit.

With all these blights and plagues attacking (cancer!) them, though, what was natural becomes unnatural. How many of us refuse to sing, claim they can't sing, give all sorts of excuses - from illness to shyness - why they must not sing? We do the same with loving. We're afraid we'll be hurt. We may have already been hurt. We're afraid we'll be rejected or just look silly.

I suspect we can learn a lot about how we love by how we sing.

My search for healing and wholeness include singing. I don't have to go on stage. I don't have to use a recognizable tune or sing on key. Neither do you! Just "croak" out whatever words you can remember or that just come to you. Sing your prayers (I do, it makes for interesting looks from the cats) and sing away your fears. Do it in your bathroom with the water running.

Sing along with Nickel Creek or Gerard Butler or Emmylou Harris or even Indigo Girls.

Singing leaves no room for fear. Even if singing does not cure you or me it will help to heal our souls. This is after all the goal of our lives. . . . not just to live a long time but to live well.

Now That My Cancer Has Returned I Sing... try it, "Happy Days Are Here Again. The Cancer's Gone Away Again!"

Now That My Cancer Has Returned . . . .

. . . I'm learning to see myself through the eyes of love .

Those who love me have much better eyes than mine. The eyes of those who love us are always the best. Unlike the old saying love is not blind at all. Love see with the eyes of God, not the eyes of the world. Love has remarkable clarity of vision, the scope of a eagle in flight, free from all those debris of reality.

There where things about me, before cancer that I could not love. There must have been a part of me that need the cancer so it could be cut out and through away. I don't quite understand these feelings, but somehow I feel it is true. It's like when you set the alarm to go off at six in the morning and you wake up just before the alarm goes off, even though I usually snooze steadily on till seven. The body just knows.

You may not feel this way at all. I have a cancer friend who has often said to me " I'm blameless. I didn't do anything at all to cause this". I believe her. She knows herself. I know myself, too.

I look at me with the eyes of reality, and what do I see? A middle aged woman who is once again losing her hair. Those bright Hazel green eyes are more often than not bloodshot. They peek out through swollen lids. The veins beneath my skin have taken on the look of jagged and jaded lightning flashes. My lips are sometimes swollen, puffy and pale. That's the view through the eyes of reality.

Than there are the eyes of love. My dearest friend says to me, " when I look at you I see the love of friendship, sisterhood that dew me to you all those years ago". She tells me to remember what good times we have had when we would hike to a quite pinnacle and sit or lay on our backs and watch the night sky. We would tell each other what best friends we were and would always be.

And now you say to me hurry back. . . we miss you . . . I miss the view through your eyes. "You have no idea how important you have always been to me and always will be. You have made me believe I could and can make a difference." You have loved me just the way I am. Those aren't the eyes of reality, those are the eyes of love.

They see me as I want to be and yet, for them, already am.

Now that my cancer has returned, I can see myself through their eyes. I like seeing me through the eyes of love.

You've Got a Friend . . . .

An old proverb says that "one friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; and three are hardly possible."

Not true! The truth is that starting from when we were little children and continuing to this very moment good friends have had a way of coming in and out of our lives at every turn.

First came our childhood friends, than our high school and college friends, than our work friends, the friends that come through family associations, our community service to others, and than came the friends after that, and on it goes.

While it is true just one, two or three of these friends come to stay forever, while the rest have come and gone.

Each and every friendship, however brief brings a lasting and priceless gift if we only take the time to stop and look for it.

For me it has sometimes seemed like I am Time Square New York! I stand in one place as so many people pass in and out of my life. We spend special times together during the chaotic interim until it is time for them to board their bus or catch a taxi or hop a subway train. O! yes sometimes the farewells are sad but while we are standing at those crossroads what a time we've had!

Think of all the wonderful people in your own "Time Square" life and be happy for them, honor them. What a time you've had!

Don't wait for tomorrow to tell them how you feel. Let them know today . . . . You've got a friend.

LOVE IS BLIND

FRIENDSHIP IS CLAIRVOYANT.

She Who Loves A Garden . . . .

SHE WHO LOVES A GARDEN LOVES THE WONDERS OF CREATION AND APPRECIATES THE JOY THAT FLOWERS BRING.

SHE WHO LOVES A GARDEN LIKES TO MAKE THE EARTH MORE LOVELY AND ENJOYS THE BEAUTY SHE'S CONTRIBUTING.

SHE WHO LOVES A GARDEN LEARNS THE LESSONS OF THE SEASONS AND HOW LIFE ITSELF ADHERES TO NATURE'S PLAN . . . .

THAT FROM EVERY WINTER SLEEP THERE COMES A WONDERFUL AWAKENING HOLDING PROMISE AS IT HAS SINCE TIME BEGAN

SHE WHO LOVES A GARDEN KNOWS IT'S ONLY HERS TO BORROW . . . .

THAT THE TENDER CARE SHE PUTS INTO THE SOIL . . . .

. . . . HELPS THE CHILDREN OF TOMORROW CARRY ON WHAT SHE HAS STARTED, GIVING STRENGTH AND LASTING VALUE TO HER TOIL.

SHE WHO LOVES A GARDEN LOVES THE JOYS OF SIMPLE LIVING AND THE PEACE ON WHICH NO MAN CAN PLACE A PRICE.

SHE WHO LOVES A GARDEN HAS A VERY SPECIAL TREASURE . . . .

FOR SHE HAS FOUND HER PRIVATE PARADISE.

words by Mary Engelbreit