Assumptions: things that are accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof
There are many things we live with as givens, as assumptions that we don’t even know we believe. Even when we do our best to live with great awareness and consciousness, they still creep in, so universally accepted in our world, that we don’t see the possibility that they could not be true.
Elizabeth Blue – at the Grand Canyon, January, 2012
As I was sitting with my older daughter Elizabeth last year while she was moving towards her death, I had time to reflect on many assumptions I’d made about her and her life: That she’d live a long and fulfilling life. That wherever we both lived, we’d continue to talk, communicate, and see each other. That no matter our differences and hurt feelings, we’d continue to dive deep into our inner worlds and find places in common and communicate about what we wished for, apologize for any ways we’d hurt each other, and let each other know how much we loved and appreciated each other.
In some ways the assumption about her, or any of us living a long life was foolish, having grown up close to my grandparents, who’d watched both their sons die young, my uncle and my father at ages 21 and 30; I had watched several friends die of cancer who had young children they’d planned on raising; I’d worked with people dying of cancer, including children and young adults, years before Elizabeth had been diagnosed with cancer…so I knew this was a possibility in life. However, I believed as so many do: not to me, not to my family, not possible, please.
August 19, 2012 from Lucia Maya’s journal – Assumptions
The things i didn’t even realize i was counting on. Assuming without knowing: that Elizabeth would grow up and outlive me. That she’d have a career, whether as an English professor, as she talked about, or a body piercer, another idea that seemed more a youthful way to make some extra money, I didn’t know. Perhaps owning a vintage clothing store, or as a successful writer…
I assumed and hoped: that she would have long term relationship(s) with someone that she would love and find happiness with, that I might like, hopefully marry one of them someday, a wonderful man/woman who loves and adores her, and makes her happy, inspires her creativity, and that they would have children together. That I would have grandchildren to come visit, wherever she lived.
That we would have lots of time to talk and get along, to have intimate conversations and have times where she couldn’t stand me again. Where she desperately needed me, and times when she was so in love and busy she couldn’t answer my calls or texts.
Times where I’d worry if she was happy, had anxiety, was fulfilled, was never going to fall in love; have high enough self-esteem; recover from whatever emotional damage I’ve inflicted, or ways life traumas have wounded her…
It is this loss of the innocence, the loss of all these beliefs and assumptions and my stories of the imagined future that cause me the greatest grief. It is when I go back in my mind to see a “movie” of Elizabeth as she was, and that picture of her in the past holds all these assumptions and beliefs of what was still to come, and it is heartbreaking. All the stories that will never come true. The conversations never had, the joy and the anger and the fear and the wedding(s) and the grandchildren and the growing old, and the love, always the love…
So I take and am grateful for what I still have – the love, the conversations I can still have with her now in spirit, when I listen closely I hear her. I know she is always with me, and the present and the future will look different than what I assumed, and I do the best I can to accept and even love this life, as it is.
A short and heart-wrenching piece written by my daughter Elizabeth Blue, while she was in the middle of her first round of chemo treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which ended her life on September 23, 2012.This was written 4 days after her 22nd birthday.
Motherhood
Monday January 16, 2012 7:57 PM
I just burst into tears. I was looking at a friends new baby and wedding pictures and I was getting teary eyed at them. I got up, closed the computer and went to use the bathroom. When I came out I thought about my daughter and the people I would want there during my labor and her birth. I thought about Victoria coaching me through labor and pain and telling me about her experiences and I burst into tears. Truly uncontrollable sobs. I’m still crying. I thought about how I might never have that and I could barely stand it. Something just months ago I thought I would never want, I want. I want so badly, so much, to be a mom. I want so much to meet my daughter Chloe Cricket Benjamin Blue. I imagined her having the same birthday as me or the day before and how it would be the best birthday present god or life or anyone could give. I want to meet her. My daughter: Chloe Cricket Benjamin Blue. I want so much to know her – the thought of not knowing her brings tears to my eyes and I can’t stop crying and sobbing and wailing knowing that it is possible it may never happen. I miss her and I didn’t even meet her yet. I tried to reason the tears away wondering if I’m hormonal or had too much coffee or am hungry. But none of these things were true and even if they were it doesn’t matter. I just want to meet her I just want to know her. I want to be born a mom, anew and born with her into a new life: the clan of motherhood.
This week it has been one year since my daughter Elizabeth had 2 brain surgeries. The first one, July 19, 2012, we hoped would remove the cancer from her brain, and the second on July 20 was done to save her life (for a time, anyway), as her brain had started to swell, and the neurosurgeon needed to remove part of her skull to allow space for the swelling. I anticipated that with these anniversaries, I would be brought back into the memories of that time. That I would relive all the sadness that came with learning that the surgery was not successful, and then that there was no more treatment and Elizabeth was not going to survive very long, most likely a couple of months.
Yet grief is rarely predictable, and I’m feeling peaceful, relaxed, perhaps a bit disengaged, but also very present. Even when I try to go back into the story, it is not enough to move me into grief. I was worried that I was becoming numb, but I am full of feelings, one after another, from sadness to gratitude, to joy.
I am not numb – when I talk to a new friend whose son also died, I am moved to tears when she tells me how seeing photographs of Elizabeth moves her so, and that she wishes she had lived so she could meet this amazing young woman. I was immediately aware, however, that she would not even know who Elizabeth was if she were still alive. Her writing, her wisdom, her beauty was not available to so many while she was alive. And so I find myself grateful, for Elizabeth’s life, and even in some bizarre way for her death – that if this was her time to go, that she did it with such grace, and that her writing and beauty is reaching so many.
Here are some of my writings from one year ago:
July 23, 2012 (still in ICU at UMC hospital)
I stayed up with her all night, the anniversary of my father’s death. Sitting vigil, not wanting her to leave to be with him on this potent day. Praying all night to my ancestors, her guides, all the forces, asking them to have mercy. She stayed that night.
July 29, 2012 (now at home with hospice)
Yesterday was a day of almost blissful peace, radiant grace and devotion. Today, I was kept awake after reading an email depicting the possibilities of a painful and frightened death for Elizabeth, and I couldn’t sleep, wanting to find someone to blame – the surgeon, (he shouldn’t have given us false hope, when he must have known he couldn’t remove the whole tumor), my partner Zelie, (for not being here, not wanting to be here so desperately she’d just jump on a plane without asking). But knowing that there is no one to blame, each is playing her/his part just perfectly, divinely orchestrated, and I’m truly grateful that Zelie is clear about where she needs to be, and she can’t help me here right now.
So today I’m more in that shattered grieving place, almost unbearably sad, but not unbearable at all, no story with the sadness, and even with the grief and the loss, aware it’s just another feeling and I can actually enjoy the experience. My worst fears are being realized (some of them at least) and I am in such a state of grace, being with Elizabeth in her radiance and her presence, that I can be at deeper peace than in my daily life. This slowing down time is just what i need. If i go into stories of who she might have been, grandchildren never conceived and born, no wedding and falling in love, no more writing and being seen as an amazingly gifted writer… and on and on, then I can be devastated, though not right now as I write this. Right now I see the story may all be about me anyway. Me having new “babies” being birthed, me falling in love and getting married, me writing and getting seen as my gifts, and hers, get shared with the world.
Elizabeth at home in hospice with her cat BlueElizabeth Blue and Lucia Maya, at home in hospice
Victoria (my long-time friend and Elizabeth’s godmother) just called us soul mates, me and Elizabeth. E has written about us sharing the same heart, and I am certainly in the same field she is right now. I can’t think about much other than the moment I’m in right now. Elizabeth told me, when i was telling her of her friend Cailin’s planned visit an hour later yesterday, that I don’t need to tell her those kinds of things, meaning anything beyond what is literally right in front of her.
I asked her a few serious questions yesterday: if her heart stopped or she stopped breathing, does she want us to call 911 and have her resuscitated – she said no; and if she’s alive but can no longer make her wishes known, who does she want to make decisions for her – she pointed to and named me; and finally I could tell she was tired, so I asked if there was anything we could be doing to make her more comfortable, and she said “stop asking me questions”. I loved it. And stopped.
Today when she asked me how I was, as she does after I ask her, I said sad. She said she knew, and asked why. I told her I was going to miss her, and she asked when? I said I thought she was in the process of dying and I would miss her when she was gone. She asked what i thought death is, and I said when we leave our body. And that i’ve heard from many people who’ve died and come back that it’s a beautiful experience, more beautiful than anything in life, anything they experienced on earth. She nodded. I said I wasn’t sad about what she’d experience, I was sad about my experience of missing her, but I know her spirit will always be here. She nodded. I told her I had thought she’d always be here, and that was why I was sad.
Elizabeth’s been saying since her rediagnosis that she is going through a rebirth, and she went all the way back to the pre-birth state in the hospital: unable to speak, or even make sounds, unable to open her eyes, then being born: with the (breathing) tube pulled out, able to speak and breathe on her own, but still totally depending on others with a feeding tube and IV fluids, then removing those, and starting to swallow, to drink and eat, to speak again. And now, at home, still dependent, and yet completely reborn, with divine wisdom and no mind. Quiet Mind she calls it. She seems to be completely comfortable and at peace.
It occurred to me, that for her to get to this state of peace, she was willing to go through cancer in her brain, 2 brain surgeries, a stroke, and now the deathing process, to move into this state of grace and divine mind. and not just for herself, but for so many around her, touching countless lives.
E’s been seeming farther away now. Not so much in her own world, as she’s been, but less of anywhere.
These entries from my emails and journals from July, 2012, one year ago, tell the story of the hardest period in my daughter’s time of living with cancer. Elizabeth Blue was in the ICU after a recurrence of lymphoma in her brain. Since June 12, 2012, she had had two rounds of chemo which did not shrink the tumor, followed by brain surgery in an attempt to remove the tumor, which removed some, but also caused massive swelling in her brain. This necessitated a second surgery to remove some of her skull to give her brain room to expand, followed by a stroke. Even with all this, I was still holding the vision of her full recovery, now including rehab for her to learn to walk again. Though I could feel the weight of all this news preparing me, I was angry at the nurse who first mentioned the word hospice. I’m now grateful, as it finally propelled me to ask the doctors for a realistic assessment of what we could expect. And then, the ultimate devastating news, that there was no more treatment, and we should consider hospice care.
Though this was extremely difficult, the grace and radiance of love was immense. Even as I read back through this period, I’m astounded at what we were all able to be present for, and that we did not simply endure, but our hearts expanded and opened more fully than I imagined possible.
7/22/12
Hi all,
sorry i don’t have good news – Elizabeth had a stroke which is affecting her legs – as of this morning she can’t move them. They can see from the scan that nothing else is affected. They believe it’s because of the swelling (in her brain), and that is putting pressure on small arteries – one must have bled and that’s what caused the stroke. This is devastating, but they are hopeful working with rehab will help, though that is down the road a ways. She doesn’t know this, at least we haven’t said it directly, though she was sleeping in the room with pain meds when the doctor was telling us and showing us the MRI.
She still has the breathing tube in which is very uncomfortable, although she’s breathing fine, they’re concerned about when she gets too relaxed with the pain meds that she won’t be able to clear her lungs and throat. I’m pushing to get it removed, but of course am concerned about her safety as well. Hopefully tomorrow…They don’t want to take it out and have to put it back, which of course i don’t either.
The good news: She is able to understand all we are saying, and responding well with yes or no with her head and her right hand. She can follow requests easily, like to stop biting on the breathing tube, though it’s hard not to do, since it’s so uncomfortable. They are giving her more anti-anxiety meds today, which should help some. They expect her to be able to speak fine, once they take the tube out.
Her left hand is still not moving, but that’s from the continued swelling in the brain, and the doctors are sure that will come back once the swelling lessens. The problem is they’re trying everything and nothing seems to be reducing the swelling. It’s not increasing, but not decreasing either. Her face is less swollen, and she can open both eyes today, which is good.
That’s all for now. Thank you all for your messages and love and prayers.
much love, Lucia
July 22, 2012 – Lucia’s journal
today Elizabeth had a stroke. i can’t believe i’m writing that. this is not entirely unexpected, even though she’s 22. she has lymphoma, that recently reappeared in her brain, and there was concern she could have a seizure that would lead to a stroke, but this happened because the tumor and/or swelling of the brain, is putting pressure on small arteries, and one of them must have bled. that’s what they think. so the nice young Indian doctor, neurosurgeon resident shows us, me and Greg, the father of Elizabeth who I was once married to for 11 years, the MRI done this morning. they did this particular MRI because this morning she couldn’t move her feet, so they were suspicious. suspicious is not a good thing when you’re in the ICU in critical condition.
July 23, 2012 (still in ICU at UMC hospital) – Lucia’s journal
stayed up with her all night, the anniversary of my father’s death. sitting vigil, not wanting her to leave to be with him on this potent day. praying all night to my ancestors, her guides, all the forces, asking them to have mercy. she stayed that night.
7/24/12 – hospice
Dear friends and family,
I am exhausted, with a long night up with Elizabeth last night, and pretty devastating updates from the medical team. They (her oncology doctors) do not think that going forward with chemo or radiation will have any significant benefit, and would have side effects that aren’t worth the possible short additional time it might give Elizabeth. The neurosurgeon is clear he can’t operate again, as the swelling in her brain is too risky, and he’s already removed the tumor he could access So this leaves few options, other than prayer, love and miracles. They are recommending hospice, once we get her stable enough to move out of the hospital. We do keep hearing stories of people who were told there was no hope, and then recovered from different means, so I’m open to a miracle, and I’m also preparing myself for the end of her life as best as I can.
Elizabeth still hasn’t been able to speak, as the breathing tube/ventilator is still in, though every day they’ve been hopeful she’ll have enough strength to remove it, and now “promising” tomorrow morning, but each time they’ve been worried that she will be fine for a while, but not have the strength to breathe on her own after some hours, and would have to reinsert it. They can do that, it’s just traumatic. I think they understand that at this point, it’s a priority that Elizabeth be able to communicate her wishes, so I think it will happen tomorrow.
Elizabeth is being quite clear about what she wants (ie who in the room with her – mainly me and her dad, Greg, etc), but with only yes and no, and some one-handed communication, it’s limited. So hopefully when they do take out the tubes, she will be able to speak! It’s so uncomfortable, she tries to pull it out when she gets a chance. She knows generally what we’ve heard from the doctors, and her spirit feels very low. That was just this afternoon, and we’re all full of emotion….We haven’t yet asked her if she wants to try treatment still, or if she just wants to try to come home. Tomorrow that conversation will happen I think. She will sleep better tonight hopefully, with some good sleep meds, so we should all be better rested in the morning – I’m home and Greg is in her room with her tonight, and Victoria (close friend and godmother) is sleeping in the hospital too, in a small family/waiting room. My mom is here and Julianna (my younger daughter who was 19 then) of course, and everyone is being so wonderful and supportive.
much love to you all, Lucia
Jul 26, 2012 (my responses to emails from friends)
it feels like the decision is made, but we never know what the divine has in store for us until the next moment…
…staying present with what is, and in sorrow and much gratitude…
…she is so blessed with such grace, and i can feel she is being held in the arms of the divine. as are we all.
7/27/12 Hi all,
thank you all for your continued prayers, love and the work all are doing on behalf of Elizabeth and the rest of us.
Elizabeth came home from the hospital yesterday at 5pm and is comfortably settled in her (hospital) bed in the living room. My sister is here and my niece, my mom is still here, Elizabeth’s dad, Greg, is staying as well, and her grandparents from Boston came yesterday. Julianna is incredible, so present and loving and tuned into everything that’s going on. I’m in awe.
The hospice people have been wonderful, and especially Ann Marie, our dear friend and Elizabeth’s doctor, has been amazing, helping get her settled, with meds and everything we need.
Elizabeth is able to speak, though very quietly, and is really sweet, expressing lots of gratitude (every time someone brings her something or does something for her, she says thank you, even when they’ve already left the room – hard to describe the childlike innocence and beauty in this.). She is different, speaking slowly, and usually only in response to a question – she says her mind is quiet. She is also drinking lots and eating in small amounts. She is present, and also feels far away, more peaceful, with less anxiety and agitation since coming home from the hospital. She’s not asking many questions now, and isn’t even interested in having her beloved cat Blue come visit her.
Today was full, with hospice folks (nurse, social worker and chaplain), and then E’s best friend Samantha came and showed her the tattoo she got yesterday of E B (for Elizabeth Blue) on her arm (made us all cry – Elizabeth has always told Samantha she should get this done, and when she heard about it this morning said now she knows Sam really LOVES her), and shared stories of dozens of E’s friends here who sent their love and tears and stories with her. Finally a friend who does sound healing came and played the crystal bowls which Elizabeth loved, and it was a beautiful experience for all of us. The radiance in Elizabeth and in the room is incredible.
I know it’s devastating for all of us to lose her, or even the idea of losing her, and I imagine for those who aren’t here it might be even harder. If I stop and feel what this looks and feels like from outside, it feels overwhelmingly sad, but when I’m present in each moment it feels fine. The minute by minute process is beautiful and grace-filled, and I am truly blessed to have this time with her, and for so many of our family and friends to be close by. It does feel like she is at peace, doing whatever she needs to do to complete.
There are many (hundreds even) who are doing prayers and healing work for Elizabeth all over, and I think this combined with all the love here is helping us through this incredibly difficult passage. It does not feel like the time to go searching for miracles, but to be fully present to the miracle that is happening in each moment. We are still in the 40 day healing intensive that Elizabeth and I started July 2 and it goes til August 12. I know that healing takes many forms and looks different for each of us, and I have to trust that this is exactly the healing process we need, even though it’s not our preference.
Here’s a photo of Elizabeth from today. She is even more beautiful each day.
love to you all,
Lucia
Elizabeth’s first day at home in hospice
July 29, 2012 (from an email to a friend)
…she is being showered with love and is a radiant state of grace. it is heartbreaking and breathtakingly beautiful.
Elizabeth Blue at home in hospice
7/29/12 (to a good friend)
hi John,
she knows she is dying, and is speaking very little. mostly if spoken to, she’ll reply or respond to a question.
when i was asking her questions yesterday about if she wants to be resuscitated if she stops breathing etc, she said no, and then i asked about who she wants to make decisions if she can’t verbalize and she said me, and then i asked if there is anything we can do to make her more comfortable, and she said, to stop asking questions. love it.
so i don’t think she cares about anything beyond the moment right now, and planning for anything, even if she wants to eat something doesn’t make sense to her, or matter. she’s beyond that.
i trust we will know what she wants and if it comes to ask any specifics i will. i’ll ask if she’d like to see you though, if you feel called to come?
3 people leaving today, my niece, stepmom and Greg. leaving my main support of Tashe (sister) and my mom, plus my stepdad who’s being lovely and mostly present and quiet. julianna is extraordinary. my brother comes later in the week for a couple days.
zelie (my partner who had been in Hawaii during these last 7 weeks) is asking me if i still want her to come back early, after the retreat is done, rather than a week later, and i can’t tell her. i’m like elizabeth right now, so in the present moment, don’ t know what i want later today let alone next week. i know i’m not the same person, i can’t give much to anyone for a while though. i need to be in here. i know you understand.
i would love to see you though. you bring me a certain comfort like no other. and i imagine for elizabeth too.
love, Lucia
7/30/12 an email to our Tucson community and my clients
I am taking a hiatus from my outer work while I focus on my family.My older daughter, Elizabeth Blue, is home under hospice care now, and she is being showered with love and in a radiant state of grace. it is heartbreaking and breathtakingly beautiful. The radiance in Elizabeth and in the room is incredible.If I stop and feel what this looks and feels like from outside, it feels overwhelmingly sad, but when I’m present in each moment it feels fine. The minute by minute process is beautiful and grace-filled, and I am truly blessed to have this time with her, and for so many of our family and friends to be close by. It does feel like she is at peace, doing whatever she needs to do to complete.
There are many (hundreds even) who are doing prayers and healing work for Elizabeth all over, and I think this combined with all the love here is helping us through this incredibly difficult passage. It does not feel like the time to go searching for miracles, but to be fully present to the miracle that is happening in each moment. I know that healing takes many forms and looks different for each of us, and I have to trust that this is exactly the healing process we need, even though it’s not our preference.
I appreciate all the heart-felt suggestions and questions, but I am spending as much time as possible being in her presence, in our heart connection, and will not be online much these days.
I will not be scheduling individual clients or classes for the time being.
love and blessings, Lucia Maya
7/30/12 email to a friend
it feels to me like the path is being cleared/has been cleared for her to leave with grace, and my job is to assist in this as much as possible…
some friends are still making suggestions about different remedies to try, and my sense is that to get our hopes up now is too heartbreaking, and best to focus on being present with what is…i’m an eternal optimist, but my optimism is now focused on facilitating this transition as her healing process…
and of course remain open to ALL possibilities.
7/31/12 (to a friend)
oddly, as incredibly sad as i am, the one i know is already gone, and i’m grieving that loss, and the one who is here feels like she’s clearly on her own journey out, so the hope i feel is largely about the passage being peaceful and gracefilled…and just what she needs it to be.
8/1/12 another group update
Hi,
Elizabeth is doing well here at home, very restful, at peace, very quiet and in no pain. she’s on almost no medication now, eating little, drinking some (for some reason every time she drinks at all, she drinks to the bottom of the glass, like it’s just what you do…), observing, but not engaging much unless she’s engaged and will answer questions, usually with a nod yes or no. otherwise she’ll just listen. she makes her needs known still.
She’s being very well cared for and loved. lots of family and some friends, so much that i’m playing gatekeeper to help keep the energy quiet and slow, as she seems to prefer. Or at least I do! just trying to keep track of who’s coming and going is a lot, but mostly i’m not trying to, just letting people text when they want to come, and saying no if it’s not a good time…
Zelie is coming home tonight, which will be wonderful to have her presence and support in person, though her support has been tremendous from hawaii too.
Tashe (my sister) is amazing, doing everything from feeding E, massaging her, sleeping on the floor in the living room with her, to a project where she’s hanging beautiful fabric by the back door so everyone who enters that way will slow down and remember they’re entering into sacred space. Everyone here is contributing in their own way, and it’s beautiful how everything gets done and Elizabeth is being so loved and nurtured.
I found some of Elizabeth’s wonderful poetry on my computer, and wanted to share a couple. This first one is from 2005, when she was just 15. The 2nd one, “Obama” poem, I’m including the email intro she wrote then, which i love too.
love to all, Lucia
Hello All, I just came across this poem I wrote about a year ago when Obama was in the primaries. It reminded me of the excitement and love I had for him then when he was still just the bud of a revolutionary idea. It also inspired me to further appreciate him now.
Thank you for humoring my raw and unedited writing, much love to you all. -Elizabeth
Obama
We need you.
Us, a people who have slowly descended
From the dream of our ancestors.
Us, a people fallen from grace.
We need you to be our Father
We need your gentle strength
Your wise eyes.
We need your pride and your love
We need your working hands
Your compassionate mind
To mold our broken humanity
Back into something palpable
And whole.
We need you to remind us of our morality
Our passion that built this community — America.
You who see the best in us
You with trust and hope and unconditional love,
We need you.
We need a leader who will stand tall
among those who cower.
A man who will be brave enough not to drop bombs.
We need a new Father for our country.
One who knows the light in his daughter’s smile
Like a heartbeat.
One who sees the beauty in the shadows
In the tired and poor.
One who will lift the broken body
Of our country from her dying bed.
One who will see that she can be healed with compassion.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
This past week included the graduation of 4 young women I know from the University of Arizona, including my daughter Elizabeth’s best friend, who was also a creative writing major, and Elizabeth would have been graduating along with her, if she were alive. I attended her graduation with such pride and joy for her, an amazing and brilliant woman, grateful I could witness her commencement, and at the same time so deeply sad that Elizabeth was not there as well. In an amazing reading I had with a medium, (who contacts and shares messages from those in spirit) Elizabeth had communicated that she had “graduated” in the spirit world, and is completely joyful there. She even showed him herself with a diploma, which had been important to her, so that brought me some comfort.
On the heels of that tumbled Mother’s Day, my first without Elizabeth present. Again, it is filled with such a combination of emotion – gratitude for my daughter Julianna, whose 20th birthday it was that same day and sorrow that she was far away in New York; gratitude for being the mother forever to both of my inspiring, beautiful and amazing daughters, and to my own mother, for all the gifts I’ve received from her, including being born; and greater sorrow that Elizabeth will never again be with my on Mother’s Day, not in her physical form…
Elizabeth Blue and Lucia Maya ~ April, 2012
So I’ve been allowing this deep well of grief and mourning to bubble to the surface, and flow through. I’m aware that when I’m in it, I’m not clear enough to write, not clear enough to read through and select Elizabeth’s next pieces of writing that I so want to share here, and have to trust the process, trust the timing, not rushing or pushing, as much as I’d like to at times! This beautiful quote by Kahlil Gibran spoke to me and resonates deep in my being, and so I hope it speaks to you as well.
December 7, 2011 I guess I could try and say a bunch of cliche and profound things about having cancer. “I’m lucky to be here.” “I shouldn’t be here” “I’m fighting for my life.”
That one really gets me: I’m fighting for my life. The thing is, it doesn’t feel like fighting, it feels like an inconvenience. Yes, I’ve got this huge tumor the size of my fist right near my heart and I’m 21 years old and this shouldn’t be happening at my age, with my overall health, etc. etc. This shouldn’t be happening.
But the thing is also, I don’t believe in that: This shouldn’t be happening. I’ve always felt the absurdity of anything occurring because it is so unlikely. The odds for any incident occurring are miniscule (if you consider how unlikely it is that any of us be born. The right sperm meets the right egg not to mention the unlikelihood of your parents meeting in the first place, etc.) The world is filled with improbability. I’ve always seen it that way. And so it is not entirely shocking to me, the randomness of having cancer at age 21. It’s not fighting. I mean, maybe it is but I feel like I just lay there in a barcalounger and take a benadryl-induced nap while they pump me with chemicals that will hopefully make the tumor go away. (They think it will, they think its working.) Fighting is active. What I’m doing feels passive. I am letting them do things to my body to combat something my body and my soul have manifested that overall I will benefit from (experience wise) but all I have to do is lay there and let it happen to me. I am not cutting the tumor out of my body with a knife. I am not inventing new chemicals to destroy cancer cells. I am not fighting cancer. I’m letting them fight what my body has created that is not in its best interests in terms of survival. Fighting just doesn’t seem like the right word.
There are moments of vulnerability where I break down and feel the simple sadness of the diagnosis. Of the situation. Like when Victoria, my goddessmother, sent me a package and in it was this ring. It had a gold clover on it and I realized it was for luck. I put it on the ring finger of my left hand and squeezed my fingers together as tight as I could because I realized for the first time in my young life I needed luck in a life or death sort of way. Not a ‘luck to pass my finals’ sort of way, but a ‘luck to survive’ sort of way. I needed luck to survive. That was a blow. That concept struck me and made me sad.
What else: When I left the cancer center after my second chemo treatment my mom told me a story: There were two older people sitting next to me in the barcaloungers, getting chemo. (Well one of them was, the other was there for support). I always try and be cheerful when I go in to get chemo, even though I know I’ll feel like shit in a couple hours, when it starts I feel fine and everyone takes it so seriously. As if being serious will make them more likely to survive or something. I guess they are just scared. I try and be all smiles and long sexy hair flips of my gorgeous brown wig (the best thick brown real human hair China can export and New York can sell). I wear sexy yet respectful outfits, comfortable since I’ll be napping. I do my makeup the way I always do, with liquid black eyeliner, and soft lips. I try and look pretty for the nurses to prove to them I don’t always look as shitty and swollen to a crazy degree (the way I did when I came in the first time and the tumor was blocking the blood and fluid in my head and neck from leaving and I looked like I gained 50 pounds all in my face). I try and look pretty for the nurses. Especially my favorite, Else, who is from the Netherlands and pricks my veins no problem even though they are slippery, and speaks in her soft accented perfect English without hesitation or doubt that she knows what she is doing. Sometimes I love her, my angel mother.
I try and look pretty for the nurses and cheerful to make their jobs a little easier/better. I try and smile at the other patients and give them disapproving looks when they complain or smell bad or are rude to the nurses. I really shouldn’t. I should learn to be more compassionate.
When I walk around the cancer center I wear high heels so I can hear my feet clacking on the tile floors so I know I exist. So I know I don’t shuffle like an old person with soft shoes and a cane/walker. I keep my head up the way Maya Angelou told me to and I’m not particularly nice to anyone. By not particularly nice to anyone I mean I’m the way I always am. Professional, efficient, kind but distanced. I treat people formally and with smiles when they are helpful and harsh eyebrows when they are not.
Anyway, my mom told me this story: When I was getting chemo for the second time and I got up to use the bathroom the old woman next to me told my mom “She’s too young, she’s too young to be here.” My mom, wise woman that she is, responded: “everyone is, everyone is too young to be here.” But the old woman’s eyes welled up with tears and she said “yes, but she is especially too young.”
When my mom told me that it made me cry because yes, I am too young. But at least I have my beauty and my youth and a future to realize to help me make it through. I don’t know if it would be better to be old. That was the other moment.
There have been 2 dates this past week that have felt quite significant. It was one year ago, on March 21, 2012, the first day of spring, that Elizabeth had what we had every reason to believe was the last of her 6 chemo treatments for lymphoma. It was a day of celebration – of moving out of the long, dark winter of chemo, and into the rebirth and new life of spring. In the months that followed, she was reborn, telling people of her journey with cancer, writing about it on her blog, going without her wig once her hair had grown in just a half-inch (“I know there is a part of me that knows bald can be beautiful.“), returning to yoga, getting a new job, dating a new man, a body-piercing internship (“I got a Piercing Internship today. I start Sunday. I’m so excited, I think I was born to poke tiny holes in people and then tell them how to heal them correctly.” June 1 2012), being photographed not just bald, but bald and naked…
Elizabeth Blue, 4/13/12Elizabeth Blue, 4/13/12Elizabeth Blue, 4/13/12
It’s still beyond my comprehension that almost exactly 6 months later, on September 23, 2012, Elizabeth died peacefully at home, having known for 3 months that the cancer had recurred in her brain, and knowing for 2 months that there was no more treatment, and that she would almost certainly die before winter arrived again.
Just past the 6 month anniversary of her death, I’ve been surprised at how the experience of grief has gotten both easier and at times, more intense. What is fascinating is how grief is alive, a kind of entity, with its own timing and its own movement, separate from me, yet weaving itself into my life. Showing up some mornings, and taking a vacation, perhaps, on the other days. Visiting elsewhere possibly? Perhaps I am sharing this particular grief with someone else, and it can’t be in two bodies at once? It does visit less, but when it comes it is much more powerful Some days I think of Elizabeth and feel simply joy and gratitude, peace. I feel at a distance from “the story” and from grief. And there are the days when everything I see, hear, eat, wear, etc, makes me think of her and the loss of her physical presence with such intense emotion, such depth of sadness…it arrives like a wave washing over and into me, embodying me, and I surrender, as long as it takes to come up again.
I had two months of being with Elizabeth when we knew she was dying, and I had time to say goodbye to her many times as she shifted and changed during that time, but the one who I’d known before that – that Elizabeth is the one I didn’t know I was never to see again, and that’s the one I miss the most. The one who told me stories about her friends, met me for coffee every week, talked about socialism and feminism and was outraged along with me about some injustice, made me worry about her choices in men, made plans for graduate school and buying a house in the desert, and loved me as only she could. I only recently started having the phenomenon of thinking of calling her to tell her about something I think she’d like, and then laughing at myself for it. I’ve had the awareness that some small part of me is still waiting for her return, as though she were just on a very long journey, which of course she is…
“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” ~ Helen Keller
Coming next – emails from June, 2012, the next stage of Elizabeth’s journey…
I am very aware these days of moving back and forth between two aspects of myself, two archetypes: one is the Mother, the personal self, the one who grieves deeply, who is angry and sad, who misses my daughter Elizabeth, who truly cannot comprehend that she could be gone, that she died. The other is the Wise Woman aspect, the one who is completely at peace, who knows that Elizabeth finished everything she came here to do, that she is at peace, that she was always aware on some level that she wouldn’t be alive very long and was prepared for death at 22; that she is communicating with us, teaching me, even more present and available to me now than she was in life.
I am so grateful for both of these selves. When I am fully in one, there is a witness self who can remember that there is more than the perspective I hold in the moment. I can see that if I didn’t have the ability to access, or simply remember, the Wise Woman, I could be in hell when the Mother is present, at least when she is deep in the grief process, but with the awareness that there is another one present, I know that whatever I’m in is not forever, and that makes all the difference. Even when the Wise Woman is fully present, I am grateful for the Mother aspect bearing witness, as she is the one who connects with Elizabeth as she was in body, who remembers her love, her attitude, her intelligence, and allows for the personal aspects to remain.
Sometimes I can move between the two in a matter of moments, as when I was working with a client the other day, and the Wise Woman self was present, working from a loving, heart-centered place, listening, and not involved in my own story. When my client asked about Elizabeth though, having seen a photo, or read about her, I moved into the personal Mother aspect, talking about her, allowing the tears to come, and then shifting back to the transpersonal. Since Elizabeth’s birthday on January 12, I am more often in that place of the personal, with tears close to the surface much of the time. I just received a text from someone whose young brother in law is in coma, and she was offering her sympathies about Elizabeth, and that made me burst into tears…and then pause, center, shift, and I’m back in this place of peace and gratitude.
I am so grateful for the years of practice of heart-centering. I know that has made an immense difference. That from the heart center, I don’t get pulled back and forth, that the heart-center can hold all the aspects of myself, all the archetypes who are present. I am blessed to have wise and wonderful friends who listen and guide me. I am grateful to have time and space to explore these places, to go deep into the Mother self, allowing the grief to move through, and to have access to the Wise Woman archetype/self, finding the gifts and the gems within this process, knowing that there is more to come, knowing from experience that the heart-opening pain brings immense joy and gifts beyond our imagination.
Luminous Blue 