Cancer Update: Solstice
CN: cancer, grief
We got the good news from pathology that the lymph nodes they biopsied during surgery are cancer-free! We’re still waiting on my appointment next week with oncology to confirm next steps, but based on previous conversations with my doctors, this should mean no chemo and no further treatment is needed, and we’ll just be monitoring my colon and my body for recurrence for the next five years. It’s all good news, and yet, there’s still more on my heart. I’m sure I’ll be untangling this for a while. But now, on to the reflection.
On this shortest day and longest night, I’m spending time with my questions. I’m trying to sit in the holy darkness and to learn from the mystery. I’m holding myself back from the answers I want to jump to, because what is sacred today is the deep and enveloping blackness, where I am freed from all the knowing and expectation, freed for the unknown and unexpected.
On this longest night, I’m approaching the well of grief, looking long at the waters, understanding better the mighty underground river that feeds it. Though I don’t know how and I will never know why, I know that in this well is the loss of all that I expected, the loss of all that I hoped for, all that I left undone or half-done, all that I sowed and didn’t harvest, all that I left out in the frost, all that I failed to care for, for all that shouldn’t have grown, all of the pain I know I caused, all of the pain I welcomed in, all of the pain I failed to resist. There is so, so much to grieve and though I don’t know why, and I may never understand how, tonight I drink deep.
Tonight, I invite us all into the darkness. I invite us all to the well. The only requirement is that you leave your expectations behind. For this shortest day, for this longest night, for the turning of the year, do not pretend to know. Do not pretend to understand. Do not stand on the precipice of the deep and declare yourself sovereign.
Instead, sit.
Instead, cry.
Instead, laugh.
Instead, remember. Or forget. Or lay to rest. Or visit.
I don’t know how, and I will never know why, but I do know that. I know that this day is. I know that grief is. I know that unknowing is. And in the face of all that is unknown, how dare we tell another how to be or how to grieve? How dare we come to the holy darkness and ask it to be less? How dare we refuse to see it, when it is?
For all that has been. For all that wasn’t. For all that never will be. For all that we don’t know.
Blessed solstice.
