Two weeks

It seems important to mark this time. You don’t know, unless you go through it, how deeply a threatening diagnosis changes you. I got that call, incomprehensible years ago.

Thank you all, again, for yesterday’s prayer-bath. I went to sleep calmly last night; and though I still woke up at three in the morning, I feel calm, loved, secure. If I think about the PET, I get scared. But I feel your prayers, as hands lifting me up.

Feel free to keep reminding me, as you think of it. I’ll put another call out, if I need to. (Thank you again, Jake, for picking that up.) Your response yesterday was profoundly healing.

I went to yoga yesterday morning with a classmate; she treated me. It was so good to be in my body in an affirming way, to feel strong. Afterward, I felt warm and powerful. Then I got to carry the icon of Julian, at Eucharist. She of the hard-fought faith, the assurance in the terrible time. The preacher was one of my faculty, who has been a particular soul-teacher to me. Her homily was all about affirming the process of wrestling with and for faith, of being honest with God.

Yes. The icon itself was less an icon, and more a wall-picture; it’s nearly half as tall as I am. I lifted it above my head, and it balanced well. (I felt very butch.) The liturgy opened with the sprinkling rite, and we processed in to the Easter troparion:

Christ has risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And on those in the tombs bestowing life
Bestowing life!

I was walking, because I couldn’t stomp and carry the icon. But I heard and felt feet, trampling death all around me—in love and joy, and because it’s just fun. It felt so affirming, so right. God is always with us, I know; and I knew that God was in me and with me.

Later in the day, I left to go on a walk. I really wanted the prayer-time. I didn’t get it, though, in quite the way I planned. I saw a classmate in the parking lot, and we got talking. We went for a walk, and talked some more. We split a beer at LaVal’s (pizza place down the block), and finally went home. I hadn’t known that she was a breast cancer survivor, of 15 years. She met me in that fearful place, and she let me talk it out. And we talked about what seminarians talk about, in May as one is graduating. (I, thank God because I need the health insurance, am not yet.) It was a really good connection, and a reconciliation as well.

I sat with a group of friends at dinner. We talked about whatever; not the topic of me, particularly—which was refreshing. One of them, who is also a survivor of some scary health conditions, and I scraped our plates together. We were chatting about yoga, and “getting back to normal.” She left—and then she came back, and hugged me. “Love, love, love, lots of love.” She went away again.

It was exactly what I needed. I see you, I’ve been where you are, I love you, you’ll be okay.

In between all of this, your prayers came in all day. I need to write two reflection papers—but in the evening, I just let myself take it in, be loved, let myself be. Thank you.

Today: doing some homework, going to chapel, taking a walk, seeing what the day brings. A friend is taking me out tonight. Thank you all, for your time and your love.