Flowers in February

 I’ve never been a fan of February.  In February in Minnesota, winter shows no signs of letting up.  The few years I lived in Nashville I was shocked when spring started to stir in February.  In Minnesota in February, spring is still years away.

On top of the arctic weather, February ushers in the Christian season of Lent, which as a theologian I strongly approve of.  Theoretically.  It’s important to pare down, do without, take stock of our sin, and reflect on the suffering of Jesus.  But practically speaking, it’s the downer season of the church year.  So when Lent comes in the middle of a Minnesota February, I dream of practicing another faith in another state.

The first February after I was diagnosed with stage IV cancer, Ash Wednesday arrived and I couldn’t muster up the courage to go to church.  The thought of one of our pastors making the sign of the cross on my forehead and saying, “You are dust and to dust you shall return,” was more than I could handle.  Two of my vertebrae had already turned to ashes and I feared the rest of me wasn’t far behind.  I needed no additional reminder that death was near.

That February—a good two months after getting the diagnosis—was also the time when the seriousness of my condition began to sink in.  It was in February I realized that eighty percent of people who have this type of cancer are dead in five years.  It was in February when I entered the classroom again and learned I was too weak to stand up and teach at the same time.  It was in February that the cancer-winter-Lent triple threat became almost more than I could bear.

These days I speak a lot about how to talk to and be with those who are living with cancer and other awful things.  In those presentations people often ask, “What was it that people did for you during the toughest times that you appreciated the most?”  We talk about how many of us say, “Let us know what we can do,” even as we are aware can be extra burden to a person who’s likely overwhelmed already.

During that first awful February, I had no answer to those who asked what they could do for me.  I was deep in the valley of the shadow, and had no idea how to find a way out.  When you’re in the midst of the badness, it’s hard to figure out what others might be able to do for you.

So today, when I talk with others about how to be helpful to those who are suffering, I talk about how appreciative I have been of those who saw a need and filled it.  One of my daughter’s friend’s mothers is a hair stylist, and during the time I was homebound, she came to the house and cut my hair.  Another friend asked for recipes of our regular family dinners so she could bring meals that had an added sense of comfort to them.

On the less-practical-yet-still-wonderful hand, a dear friend of ours who lost his wife to the same cancer I have has created a beautiful tradition in response to my allergic reaction to the second month of the year.  The first day of February he shows up at our house with flowers.  Not just a few small buds, but a dazzling array of Gebera daisies, lilies, and roses.  February’s threat fades in the presence of their beauty.

Last week, as February breathed its last breaths, another gift of flowers arrived, this time from a dear friend in Illinois who has kept a steady stream of gifts coming our way the past four years.  For a good while it was blueberries—preserved, dried, mixed with amaretto, drenched in chocolate.  Lately she’s moved on to sunflowers—this time, with irises.  Once again, the sight and smell of fresh-cut flowers has taken the edge off this time when the valley of the shadow lurks near by.

I’ve said many times before that cancer is no gift.  At the same time, countless gifts of grace have come my way in cancer’s wake.  I—we—are often held up by these signs of grace, hope, and love bestowed on us by those who care for us.  In the longest shortest month of the year, flowers testify that spring is on its way.  In this season of Lent, flowers stand as silent witnesses that Easter is coming.  Winter is fading.  New life is almost here.  Thanks be to God—it’s March.

The More of Tamar

In my last blog post on “Rejoicing While Others Mourn,” I reflected on the rejoicing we did as a family at the end of 2012, knowing that at the same time, there was much mourning by families in so many other places in the world. Shortly after I wrote those words, a time to mourn was thrust into our midst with the sudden death of our 20-year-old neighbor as she finished up her semester of studying abroad in
South America.

As I spent much of the week at the Kaplan’s, helping plan a service that we hoped would be a fitting tribute to Tamar’s too-short life, the impossibility of such a task was an ever-present reality. How could a 90-minute service possibly capture the essence of Tamar? Of course, the question itself was an excruciating one—one that should not have to be asked by parents and siblings of a bright-eyed young woman with her whole life ahead of her. Yet there we were, compiling pictures, stories, readings, and music, all in an attempt to capture the rich life she lived.

At the beginning of the memorial service, I stood in front of the more than six hundred who came together to honor, to grieve, and to support, and tried to put into words what I’d witnessed in the chaotic mixture of love and grief that had filled the days since her death:

How do we capture a life? We turn today to photos of events and relationships; to music that invokes a personality; to readings from favorite books; to reflections from those close to the source; to words from an ancient shared heritage. All in an attempt to capture a life. Her life. The life of Tamar Hanna Kaplan.

Even as these shared memories capture aspects of her life, all of us gathered here know that there’s so much more that can’t be captured by words or notes or pictures. It’s the sudden inaccessibility of the more of Tamar that saturates us with grief today.

At the same time, we gather to honor the more of Tamar that death cannot take away. The photos and readings and recitations and reflections all point to the more of Tamar that refuses to die. All of us here today are witnesses to her dear family and friends that death does not have the last word on Tamar. The love shown here this morning is a sign that the love we have for Tamar and the love she had for her family, her friends, for life and for the world is stronger than any pronouncement of death could ever be.

Let us proceed with our honoring of Tamar and in our insistence that who she was and what she meant to the world lives on.

What came through vividly at the service was the fact that the more of Tamar was so clearly on display in all aspects of her life. She embraced living with an exuberant fierceness. Indeed, we heard that after a semester in Ecuador, she told friends she’d have to create a new bucket list, for she’d crossed off everything she’d hoped to do, from climbing a mountain to repelling down a canyon.

It’s a time to mourn the loss of a lovely daughter, sister, niece, roommate, friend. And in this time of mourning, we hope for a time in the future when laughter and rejoicing will come again, a time that will also include not only the more of Tamar, but the more of us all.

Rejoicing while Others Mourn

This holiday season our nation experienced a jarring juxtaposition I’ve become
more attuned to since living with cancer: the occasion when heartbreak collides
with celebration. The mid-December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School
injected shock and grief into a time when tidings of great joy are supposed to rule
the day. How does one rejoice in the midst of others’ anguish?

I admit that more than once during our family celebrations of the past few weeks,
my thoughts gravitated to the stark contrast between my family’s days of laughter
and joy and the families in Newtown crying their way through the holidays, knowing
that their precious little ones would never see another holiday, another new year,
another day of school. There were moments where it felt almost dishonorable to be
rejoicing, knowing so many others—both in Newtown and beyond—were buried in
sadness.

As devastating an event as the Newtown massacre is, it’s far from the only cause
for grief these days. Violence from Syria to North Minneapolis translates into much
holiday mourning for so many. In addition to the violence we inflict on one another,
there’s also the pain that accompanies dreaded diagnoses of cancer, lymphoma,
heart disease, and more. Our family is cognizant of the children and father down
the street who spent Christmas without their mother and wife after she was taken
away by cancer. We mourn with our extended family as a relative with cancer has
almost certainly celebrated her last Christmas in this life. I admit to struggling with
celebrating our own good fortune in light the immense pain, sadness, and grief that
exists both close by and far away.

Back when I was really sick and really sad about my sickness, my husband—who
initially had been completely undone by my stage IV cancer diagnosis—informed
me that he had made a decision: that he was going to try and relish the time he and
I have left rather than spending this time mourning that we likely don’t have much
time left.

While my rationale self understood this to be a sound strategy, my husband’s new
approach didn’t sit well with the rest of me. The gravity of my diagnosis was just
settling in to my brain. I was sad—really sad. And I didn’t want a happy husband
who looked on the bright side. I wanted a husband who joined me in the pit where
sadness and grief dominate.

Since those early days of my diagnosis, I’ve thought much about the challenge of
knowing how to distinguish, as the author of Ecclesiastes says, between the time to
weep and the time to laugh, between the time to mourn and the time to dance. Is
it possible to embrace our times to laugh and dance in a way that doesn’t dishonor
others’ times to weep and mourn?

Twentieth century writer C.S. Lewis struggled much with the interconnection of
rejoicing and mourning. Lewis lost his young wife, Joy, to cancer early in their
marriage. In the movie, Shadowlands, that chronicles their life together, Joy insists
that they talk about her impending death. “The joy now is part of the pain then,” she
tells Lewis. At her gravesite, Lewis returns to Joy’s insight, telling himself, “The pain
now is part of the joy then.”

This explanation of the link between joy and grief is one I keep close at hand, as I
shed tears for the first graders huddled together in that Newtown classroom, as I
grieve for our neighbors aching at the absence of their mom and wife, as I wonder
how many holiday seasons I will get to celebrate. The gift of life is a precious one,
a gift I attempt to rejoice in and treasure, even amidst the stiff awareness of its
fragility. It is a privilege to wake to the sun, to smile at the new year, to cherish the
stark beauty of winter in Minnesota.

My husband seems to know what C.S. Lewis’ wife knew: that loving what is
finite means that the pain and grief are unavoidable. But when we’re given the
opportunity to rejoice, let’s embrace it, even as we are aware that grief in this life is
never far away. And let us also hope, in the words of Revelation 21, for a time when
there will be no more crying, no more dying—only light, only love.

Here’s to savoring the times to rejoice in this new year.

An Advent Cancerversary

As I approach the fourth anniversary of the day I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, I’m caught between conflicting emotions.  On the one hand, I’m extremely grateful to still be around.  Reaching cancerversary #4 is a milestone.  Definitely cause for celebration.  But with the cancer reactivated and recent moves to new medication and more time in the chemo room, the celebratory urge has become more muted.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve struggled with how to have cancer and how to talk about it.  Heading toward the cancerversary, I also struggle with how to mark the anniversary of cancer’s entrance into my life.  On the first cancerversary, a dear friend who lost his wife to the cancer I have brought over champagne.  We toasted the fact that I was living with cancer, that the medication had put me into remission, that our lives were beginning to resemble our lives before cancer.

But a heavy sadness followed quickly on the heels of that first cancerversary.  To be sure: I was thankful I had made it to my first anniversary of living with cancer.  I tried to focus on the positive.  In my interior life, however, the accent of the observance fell on the cancer part of the cancerversary.  The reality of my incurable diagnosis dominated my December.  Yes, I was living with cancer.  But how many more cancerversaries would there be?  

How do we mark an anniversary that signals both life and death?  And how do I live in this space punctuated by both grace and grief?

That my cancerversary falls in Advent offers a possible way forward.  The season of Advent—easy to miss amidst our glitz-saturated shopping season—is a time of waiting in darkness for light.  Advent anticipates the in breaking of Love into our mortal, finite lives.  Advent marks the beginning of a new year, where waiting and uncertainty eventually give way to hope.  Hope that our earthly stories of living into and out of cancerversaries is ultimately part of a much larger story, a story where love is strong as death, where the grace in our days is but a foretaste of the feast to come.

I guess there’s an appropriateness to observing a cancerversary in Advent.  It comes in the darkness and beckons us to watch for in breakings of light.

In Praise of Birthdays

People often ask me how life has changed since being diagnosed with stage IV cancer.  On bad days, the question brings tears to my eyes.  On good days, though, I acknowledge that cancer changes the outlook on many aspects of life.

Take birthdays, for instance.  

This week, I’ll officially enter my upper-40s.  Since the cancer diagnosis, I’ve become more attuned to the many protests we lodge against the aging process.  The popularity of botox injections and coloring hair to hide the gray, to name just two visible protests, suggest we’re not too keen on showing the world we’re actually getting older.  We want to look young, feel young, stay young.  And then birthdays come around once a year and insist that we acknowledge we’re getting older.

Of course there are some real costs to growing old.  My family spent Thanksgiving with my almost-94-year-old Grandmother, who—despite all the health challenges that come with being in your mid-90s—is still going strong.  But getting in and out of chairs is a challenge.  Walking is a challenge.  Hearing others talk in a noisy room is a challenge.  Those challenges add up.  They take their toll.

Being in your upper 40s, however, is significantly different than being in your mid-90s.  And living with cancer in my soon-to-be upper 40s leads me to embrace and celebrate birthdays as never before.  I thank God I’m alive to experience birthday 46.  Praise be that my children are growing older and I’m here to witness it.  Hallelujah that my husband’s turning (a much-younger) 45 next month and I can celebrate with him.  These days my birthday—and the birthday of others I love—is cause for gratitude for the continuing gift of life.  That we’re around to grow older is worth celebrating, at least once a year.

Recently the American Cancer Society launched a campaign called More Birthdays where they ask others to join them in creating a world with less cancer and more birthdays (http://morebirthdays.com).  I’m all in.

So here’s to more birthdays: to mine, to yours, and to everyone else’s.