A Candle for Each Other

My monthly breast cancer support group met this week.  I don’t always go, but I went this week so that I could see one of my nurses, and give her a Christmas gift.  The meeting was surprisingly crowded.  A good way into the hour, the door opened to the small conference room, and a woman entered, face covered with a mask, two hats on.  As she peeled off her layers, she appeared drawn, haggard, and stressed.  She asked if this was the meeting where she would learn to make herself look beautiful again, in a jesting voice.  My nurse got up and greeted her, “It’s so good to see you.  I’m glad that you are here.”

The woman sat down and burst into tears, wracked with fear, pain and despair.  She told us that her treatment was just killing her.  She could not eat, had lost a lot of weight, and she felt so terrible all the time.  She could not sleep and found herself awake, night after night at 2:30 AM, “the witching hour,” as she called it, pondering all of the frightful what-ifs – what if I go through all of this, and the treatment doesn’t work, what if the side effects of the medications harm me, what if I can’t eat what I want to eat again, what if, what if, what if? All of it was so overwhelming, and she did not know what to do.

 As her tears gradually subsided, the therapist who co-leads the group, introduced herself, welcomed the woman and summarized what we had been discussing – gratitude mostly and how to practice it mindfully.  Then, the rest of us went around the room, introduced ourselves to her and shared a little something with her.  One woman offered the gift of forgiveness, that it was okay for her to feel crappy and want to cry.  Another related that she and every member of her book group are up most nights at 2:30 AM because that’s how they are – “I’d like to say that is probably more about our age, than about the cancer.” 

Another woman spoke more of the gift of gratitude, that even when we feel our worst, there is always some small thing to hold onto and that the important thing is to try to find it, even if it is as simple as watching a favorite holiday show.  Still another suggested that she ask more questions about her diet and treatment and to speak to her doctors about how she was struggling.  

As I sat and listened to what the others were saying, I watched the woman’s face.  Her forehead started to unfurrow.  Her breathing became more regular, and for a moment, she appeared a bit calmer.  Then, the tears began to trickle again from her eyes, and she said that she just could not handle all of it.

Lucky me, now it was my turn to share something.  Crap.  Think, Chris, think.  From the back of my brain, the title of one of my favorite books, Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, my favorite writer, gave me an idea.  If you haven’t read this book, you should.   I'm reading it again.  (The book is about writing, by the way.)  The title of the book comes from a story that Lamott relates about her older brother, who at 10 years old, had to write a report about birds.  Of course, her brother left the project until the day before it was due.  (Whose kids do this?  Surely, not mine, except actually . . . all the time.)  Lamott’s brother was overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and did not know how he going to do it.  Then, his dad sat down with him and said, “Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.”

And isn’t that the truth?  Do we need to solve the mysteries of the universe all at once?  Do we need to totally figure out how we are going to handle the path of a disease, over which have no control?  No.  We. Don’t.  So, I offered to the woman that she try to be more gracious to herself and accept that didn’t need to deal with it all of it.  All she had to do was handle what was in front of her right now, in this moment.  She replied that she didn’t think she could do that.  I responded, “You did.  You made it here.”  Then, my nurse chimed in, “And, you made a funny joke when you arrived.”  Nodding her head, the woman wiped her eyes and said, “Thank you. Thank you.”  The woman turned to my nurse and asked her to help come up with a list of questions for her doctors.

The meeting started to wrap up, as people had to move on with their days.  I gave my nurse her present; it was a bead bracelet because she loves her beads, with a charm inscribed with the word, “Hope.”  “Because that’s what you give us,” I said and then headed out.

As I drove home, my thoughts turned to the meaning of hope.  Desmond Tutu once said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”  But, what are we supposed to do when we can’t see the light?  We can wail at the darkness and stay up night after night fixating on the worst.  We can withdraw from our friends and family.  Or, we can find the damn matches and use them because we are supposed to be living as “children of the light.”

It’s all over our spiritual traditions, for the love of all that is good, and I don’t think that’s an accident.  We light candles to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali to signify the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and hope over despair.  In the season of Advent, we wait for Emmanuel, God with Us, the Light of the World.  To celebrate Hanukkah, we light the Menorah and rejoice in the miracle of light.  We give praise to Allah, the light upon light.  We do sun salutations in the practice of yoga.  It’s all there right in front of us, if we open our eyes.

After this karma-has-kicked-my-ass year, I have come to believe that we need to light the light in each other.  It’s not that hard.  It can take any form -- a kind word, advice from our own experience at a support group, a nod that we get it, a text, a note, a call, or an invitation to have coffee or to sit together at lunch -- what-fucking-ever it takes to make the path brighter.  One single match dispels the darkness, you know.

So, this is my prayer as we enter the last week of Advent and as this long year comes to close, that, please God, we become a candle for each other.