The Breath of Love

The Breath of Love

I’m breathing into my heart today to get through my fear. In the long hours of waiting for my daughter’s CAT scan results, I am fending off thoughts of all the unhappy endings--all the premature deaths in my life these days. I am attempting to hold onto our miracle.

Two years ago almost to the day, we got the news that Jan had fourth stage non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Since the five months that I spent with her in England during her eight rounds of chemotherapy treatments, what I remember most is the love. I relive the tears of joy and sadness that she shed all through her impromptu wedding as Huel, the love of her life, gently wiped them away. I can hear her say as she lay on the couch where she spent her first two weeks after each chemo, “Mom, thanks for loving me so much.”

I was sitting on the floor hugging her legs, knowing my spontaneous reply to have come from the depths of my soul: “That’s like thanking me for breathing, honey.”
She’s been in remission ever since. So why oh why do the results of her regular check-ups frighten us so? Perhaps the shock of the original diagnosis never goes away. Also, I cannot help but to keep reflecting on the cruelty of premature mortality that has rained on my thanksgiving parade ever since we got our good news.

While waiting for a new heart, my 57-year-old-cousin, newly married for two years and retired from teaching for a month, slipped into organ failure as they operated in hopes of postponing her death. Fearful of my lung disease harming her, we could only speak our love over the phone for her final weeks. “Love and Light” she would write as she signed off her e-mails.

For the past two years, I’ve been included in another mother’s “update e-mails” asking for prayers, full of hope and gratitude until her 35-year-old son finally slipped into death after a two-year struggle with a rare form of cancer.

My television reveals the beautiful faces of the thirty-three Virginia Tech students and teachers felled in their prime when a crazed gunman fired at random in their university classrooms. Their stories are portraits of brilliance and vitality promising amazing futures cut off.

I have spent my Mexican winter with a beautifully courageous friend who is about to start her fourth round of treatment for another rare form of cancer that refuses to go away. My childhood friend, who helped me travel to England, is again supporting her own daughter, a clever lawyer, through her next round of chemo. Their strength gives me courage. I know that the breath of Love sustains them too.

But I’m still scared--paralyzed by the fear of why the phone isn’t ringing. Holding my breath, in the silence, I jump with the shock of its knell. “I’m so sorry, Mom,” Jan says, “I didn’t get the results ’till now. They found no sign of cancer! We can go ahead with our move to Canada!”

I scream the cry of a joyful banshee. “Huel cried too,” she says.

Gracias Dios. Blessed be. I am able to breathe once more.