This will be a brief post. My life, at the moment is filled with the needs of a family in distress. Someone close to me is losing her battle with bone cancer, someone relatively young, someone who only four years ago suffered the loss of her four month old baby boy, got breast cancer almost directly after and then bone cancer after that.
The story would be unbelievable if it weren't true. Her husband is now losing his wife on top of all the rest. My mind is numb, my heart aches and there is nothing I can do but be there, to chat as if we had all the time in the world with a degree of presence that betrays that we don't.
The next 3 to 6 weeks will be a very intense lesson in letting go and letting be. It feels strange to me and runs contrary to the desire to control things either literally by waving a magic wand and making her better, or via the mental gymnastics of finding some sense in it. But, there is no where to go in either direction. She is beyond all human help and the whole experience feels like it both makes sense and doesn't at the same time.
This is a liminal space and a sacred space--a womb-like space that is both unsettlingly dark and scary, while also intensely intimate and warm, alive with all the vibrancy of heartfelt human connectedness.
I have no answers as to why she must suffer as she has, or why any of us suffer as we do. But I do feel that it requires my respect and reverence.
Please remember my vulnerable friend in your contemplative moments. Much peace to you all.
