Today’s prompt was to pick one grouping of people in Seurat’s painting, ” Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte” and describe their fictional conversation regarding a discussion of Cancer. This was one of the stories:
The two women were together at the water’s edge of La Grande Jatte. one standing and one sitting. Marie, sitting on the grass, said, “I don’t know what to do, I can’t get Jacques to get a colonoscopy. He complains about rectal pain, but he does [ ... ]

                    BIOPSY
With every Biopsy, a part of me dies,
A part of my body, a part of my spirit,
Like a rock beaten down by the constant drip-drip of water,
Slowly, surely, wearing, gnawing..
Variable is the location,
Constant is the anger, the worry, the despair.
A needleful of my Prostate, a snip of my skin, a scrape of my mouth..
Death of tissue, death of psyche.
 
The bliss of benignity, or the malice of malignancy,
Which will it be?
Push the pause button on your life,
Don’t start anything new!
When, [ ... ]

                        Marion’s Garden of Hope
                   Last year’s garden was bleak,
                  A few annuals were all she could do,
                  Mammograms and Lumpectomies,  Radiation and Reconstruction
                  They took up most of her time.
 
                 This year’s sun is stronger and brighter,
                 She’s planting perennials now.
                 Gaillardia and Primula, Rudbeckia and Hosta,
                 Perennials for all those years to come!
 
I wrote that poem in 2007. It was written about my wife’s battle with Breast Cancer. Her mental strength through life’s tests, not just dealing with her Cancer, is what keeps me going. Death of an [ ... ]

Deep, deep inside us, are words, words just waiting and hoping to be released. They might not be about your Cancer, but they wait just the same.
This poem, written for last week’s meeting, dwells on a distant memory. But it reads as though it just happened.
 
 
Mom’s Heart Attack
 
My dad’s call came at night.
“No need to rush up here;
She’ll be all right.”
 
I left home with fears and hopes.
Orange and yellow woods lined the highway–
She was in the autumn of her [ ... ]

         Robin’s Smile
 She can’t clap with just one hand,
She can’t click her heels with just one leg,
But Oh, how she can smile!
 
Picture yourself meditating,
Calmed, refreshed.
Then you hear that tiny bell,
 
That’s Robin’s smile.
This is not specifically about Cancer; it’s about overcoming any adversity, overcoming it with grace. My wife and I were attending a 6 week workshop on living with a chronic condition. In the class was a young lady living with a condition which requires daily home dialysis, a condition [ ... ]