Make Room for Two More…
Two friends are getting ready to take their fist steps into the chemo therapy room. Their journey begins down a path so many of us in this community have taken in one way or another.
I was sent this from a dear friend who just lost her brother to cancer…Today, I pass it along, as I think of all of them.
At the Cancer Clinic
by Ted Kooser (from ‘Delights and Shadows.’ Copper Canyon Press,2004)
She is being helped toward the open door that leads to the examining rooms
by two young women I take to be her sisters.
Each bends to the weight of an arm and steps with the straight, tough bearing of courage.
At what must seem to be a great distance, a nurse holds the door,
smiling and calling encouragement.
How patient she is in the crisp white sails of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap to watch each foot swing scuffing forward and
take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment and all
the shuffling magazines grow still.
January 27, 2012 @ 4:00 pm
First, Kathie, I am very sorry for your loss. I know how much my sister means to me and it would be tramatic to lose her. Next, thank you, Laurie, for sharing a moving description of the cancer clinic.
January 27, 2012 @ 9:43 am
There is a family in our church whose daughter (they also have 2 sons) has been fighting leukemia for almost 2 years. She is doing well thankfully. The Mom writes a blog on CaringBridge site which I follow. If you visit and read, what you\’ll read is what it is like to be in the cancer world every day while struggling for normalcy. Additionally, this family has met so many other families who have children who are fighting cancer and gives some insight into their struggles as well as losses. One little 2 year old girl has had a bone marrow transplant and due to the drugs given she has a fungus that has grown in her sinuses and one lung. Yesterday, she had surgery to remove the fungus. The operations took 6+ hours. Thankfully, she pulled through so far. It is difficult for us adults to cope with the \”beast\”. Can you just imagine a child, a 2 year old and the toll it takes on the parents, grandparents, family and friends to have to have round the clock vigils with prayer warriors asking for God\’s mercy and healing power to spare their little one. This blog is just one of perhaps thousands that chronicle a family\’s fight against cancer but also the family\’s struggle to not ignore the needs of each member of the family while fighting the fight. Through all of the highs and lows and wins and losses, HOPE reigns. Through prayer their HOPE is in God\’s mercy and healing power. Her blog reminds me so much of Leroy\’s……putting it all out there, warts and all, fears and hopes to not only help themselves (catharsis) but also to help others along the way. Leroy\’s spirit lives!!
January 27, 2012 @ 9:07 am
Very poignant and familiar.
January 26, 2012 @ 6:02 pm
Powerful.