Feb 4, 2020

Eighteen infusions and I’m numb. Eighteen infusions and a parade of tears captivates. I replay the image of angels enchanting my experience of grief, I replay again. Strangers as family, phlebotomists mother-like love, best friends, medical staff who don’t comprehend the profoundness of their touch point.

I walked into my first infusion quite mental with a desperate exhausted resigned longing to quit. Tight gripped, lonely, and overwhelmed, I folded and poured out.

Leaving my last infusion, I floated high on courage, hope, and significance, weighted by the reality of loss. In more than 30+ visits to the chemo suite I never heard a bell ringing, not once. Caught off guard by the rush for the bell, a tradition I hesitate to embrace- ever aware that we are all terminal and of the preciousness of lives, that days are few and not fairly portioned- I rang the bell to humbly salute.. in love and honor, and I heard my heart break with the clatter of applause and the reality of the heavy cost. I feel the weight and I swell with gratitude for unmeasurable love and the gift of responsibility that it is to breathe and live.

My voice re-emerges, sounding an echo of the experience of others and my own, the experience of us all. The last of my infusions... a celebration to be sure. The kind of celebration that’s like surrendered dancing at a funeral. The last infusion to bring closure, the final nail in the metaphorical old.

Does the butterfly set it’s cocoon on fire, burning down its former, the coffin of who it used to be? The sixteen-legged dreams... Does it take this place to warm it’s heart?

I light a flame, a prayer, a candle. I lift the light to salute the glistening parade, cheeks wet with joy, heart wrecked, and oh so happy to say this part is over and done.