Keeping Perspective

Today I am grateful for the first snowfall of the season and the chance to run in it. But I am glad it melted for now. I am also grateful for our dog Oliver and his reminders to me to slow down and take it easy each day.

After sharing Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad's poem yesterday, I wanted to share one of my own today. I wrote "Keeping Perspective" between rounds 3 and 4 of chemotherapy. Most of my hair was gone. The effects of chemo were adding up. I was getting closer to my final surgery-bilateral mastectomy.But all in all, I was doing well and feeling plenty of gratitude. And humility. Cancer is humbling. Accepting help from others is humbling. We were getting weekly meals from co-workers as I went through chemo. They were very much appreciated, and they were very much a lesson in humility.

Between the hair loss and the humbling experiences, this poem was flying around in my head. One day when I was at the gas station, it started to come out in lines. I took out a check deposit slip and wrote on it. I love it when a poem is just clamoring to get out. It is one of my favorites of the many I wrote during those months.


Keeping Perspective
 
What's sadder than
      Having cancer?
Not knowing you have it
     And it keeps growing
 
What's sadder than
     Losing your hair?
Losing your life
     And second chances
 
What's sadder than
     Being afraid to die?
Having nothing to live for
     And forgetting joy

10/27/08

I think it shows the place that gratitude had in my thought and healing processes. I hope it shows the power of the practice of gratitude. Have a good day!

 

 

Comments

  1. Lisa,
    Oh, Lisa, you should definitely write more poems!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Nancy! There's lots more where that came from. I have been writing poems since I was twelve. In the last few years though, the poet has emerged into an essayist too.

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