The shock and the dreaming

The entire flippancy of it surprised me most.... From a "bit of a lump" along with a viral infection, to The Lump. I am struggling with the news that a close and dear friend has breast cancer...not just a benign cyst as we all thought (and hoped SO hard!), but a malignant tumour. Yes, lets say the words. Let us NOT dishonour her with side steps and pretense at it all being "ok". Coz it isn't. The needle biopsy a complete assault on her body, the decision to operate in 2 weeks...but first, scans. Ultrasounds. To determine if there is only one lump before determining a course of treatment. The alternative of there being more than one cannot be contemplated as yet.

I berate myself for my selfish grief - have been on my knees with sadness at the injustice of this heinous cancerous thing taking residence inside this beautiful human being who has already been through too much of the hardships that life can serve us up. At times I collapse and cry - I want to be there and hold her hand but I am too, far too, far away.... And I have fears of intruding on the space she and her partner and children must now value so very much. And I am lost in my own grief and fears for her. And again, angry at the selfishness of that. I do not want her to be ill, to have to battle this in the horrific ways it must be battled. I do not want to lose her.

The anger - the helplessness....the sadness....the unfairness of it. It threatens to overwhelm me. I have not slept, I have tossed and turned and cried and screamed silently. Asking for help, saying a prayer, I finally slept last night.

....and found myself inside, and a part of, everything and all there is and ever has been. I take her hand and we are soaring through space, the planets and stars streaking past us - we are accompanied by all the energy and the souls of the world that ever have been. We do not see them, but we are a part of them. Completely. She spins, lit up from inside by what seems to be the very Universe itself. The smile on her face is of beatific wonder, and I know my own face reflects the same picture. We are embraced - we embrace all. I know all this time that I am sleeping deeply but am completely aware of all, and suddenly we ARE ALL. I have a sense of who and what I am and what everyone/everything else is and how we all fit together as One Whole. I feel utterly perfectly completely free. I continue into the deepest of slumbers knowing that I am never apart from, or away from, anyone - ever. We are all together always.

And I awake, utterly rested - fulfilled and comforted.

And as the day wears on my fear returns and I feel her fears and her terror as she goes through the day of scans and xrays and ultrasounds...the realness of the "now" returns. My tears threaten and my self-anger returns with it all. I long to be back in the dream, with the All and the One.

I try, and fail, to understand what it means in the light of the day. I think perhaps I will know, eventually....but as me, myself, now - I want to be the Spiderman that scares away the bad guys, the Superman that frightens off the frightening things.... I want to save the world and I can't do it. And both the foolishness and the helplessness of that strikes me all at once.

So I will pray and cry and grieve and hope and continue to love her with all I have in my heart. And trust that somehow it will be heard and felt.

"Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines."
--Satchel Paige