The Gift

"You get mad when... health fails after doing all the right things to remain healthy if you are doing them to avoid dying... In heaven, the bitterest people are the vegetarian, meditating, joggers... Do things because you love yourself and to enhance the quality of your life... I want your body to know you love life and that that's why you do the right things... then it gets the message and kicks in and helps out... It is not about avoiding death but experiencing life..." Dr. Bernie Segiel

After being recently diagnosed with breast cancer and spending several sleepless restless nights contemplating the prognosis of my soon to be medical stew of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, lumpectomy, mastectomy, genetic testing, and my best chances for survival with the least physical deformation... I came upon Bernie Segal's website for cancer patients. Feeling dire at 4:00am, I was surprised to find myself laughing and empowered and lit up after opening myself up to his combination of rare humor and wisdom.

When I woke the next morning, instead of dark thoughts of “Please let this be a dream…,” I declared, "TODAY, is the BEST day in my life! Thank you!" I had picked up the mantra from a woman who used the daily affirmation for 14 years after being told she had only months to live. Indeed, today is actually the only day I'll ever have. The past is over and the future is not here yet, but today is mine!

Like typical mornings these last few weeks, I proceeded to drive to the hospital, wading through thick traffic, dense as fog, had my blood drawn, saw the oncologist, but on my way out, I saw an elderly gentleman. He was neatly dressed in a starched white shirt and a green bow-tie and he looked lost and was struggling with walking.

"Do you know where the East building is?" he queried.

I honestly did not know, but I stayed to help him grab people and ask. More people started to gather trying to figure out where the elderly gentleman was heading to. A priest and nun finally pointed us in the right direction... The elderly gentleman struggled up the stairs as if he was climbing a mountain, trying to heft his weight with his thin frail arms. Another complete stranger, a lady took his arm and offered to help him.

She needed to go into the Breast Oncology center for her appointment, but willingly offered to accompany the elderly gentleman to his appointment even though it would make her late. Moved by her gesture of love, I told her I just had an unscheduled chest x-ray, so I offered to take him. The elderly gentleman looked a bit worried and said, "If I'm more than 10 minutes, it says they will cancel my appointment, and I came from a far place, and wandered lost for almost an hour." I reassured him, we would get him there and beat the clock. I ran ahead, trying to find the elevators and passages, but it was a long, long, walk, on the other side of the huge hospital with four different wings. Very quickly it started to feel like we were in the Chicago airport hub hopelessly trying to catch an airplane… Clearly I could see the elderly gentleman was losing steam. Just then, I ran past some wheel chairs and I got an idea. "Would you like to have a ride instead? I could go fast?" I said playfully with a twinkle in my eye.

"What a wonderful idea." he said with a wink back.

I then had license to behave like a child... wheeling through the hospital with glee... cruising through the halls topping decent speed limits. People held the doors, let us by... with huge smiling faces... that seemed only to grow and get even wider as we passed. It was like we were all children playing a wonderful, silly and beautiful game.

Moments of the week of seeming endless doctors appointments – of feeling humiliated as I was paraded bare-breasted before a young adolescent-looking medical student and mini-crowd of onlookers, being asked for my breast tissue for science seconds after learning I might be loosing both breasts, feeling like a spectacle, objectified and dehumanized – these images flashed before my eyes as I ran through the hallways. Just last night I had felt empty and hollow, with nothing left to give, wanting to give up even before I started… and yet in that moment, as I ran pushing the wheelchair… I felt the quickening of my own heartbeat, the powerful spring in my gait, the strength even in my pin-cushion-like blood-drawn arms, and I felt incredibly vibrant and alive.

In the elevator, as I panted, and we took a short break, the gentleman introduced himself as "Ted." I said, “Ted! We're gonna make this! We're gonna beat it!”

When we arrived with 4 minutes left to spare at his doctor’s office. I felt filled with pride and triumph. We made it! Ted looked in my eyes and said, “I hope I can repay you some day for your kindness.”

Looking into his beautiful blue eyes, I said, “It was exactly what I needed today!”

He looked at me and smiled, “Wow. Me too! I don’t know how to thank you.” Then I saw a thought register across his face and he said with a great wide smile, “I know, I’ll pray for you.”

I wondered, how did he know that was just what I needed most? But I said, “I know what you can do for me, could you give me a hug?” I hugged this man I had just met a few minutes before and felt filled with joy. “Thank you.” I said.

“Thank you!” He said.

“It was just what I needed.” I said again.

“Me too.” He smiled.

The best thing about hugs is that when you give one, you get one right back. Looking into his eyes, I thought of telling him about my cancer and how this was the most fun I had ever had in a hospital, and how those moments running through the hallway were some of the most deliriously happy and delicious moments. But I just smiled and walked away with a playful wink in my eye. Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. Rather than telling an old gentleman who has probably seen most everything, that I had cancer, I wanted only to share the same sense of mystery, fun, joy and hope that we both were feeling in that moment…

The night before, I had prayed and prayed for god to help me find some meaning or purpose in my life. Most of my life I had lived for others – my parents, my teachers, my friends, my husband, my child. What was my will to live?

An anecdote from heaven, a prescription sent to me, as a power post-it note – To love and to be loved. To laugh. To live. As simple as that.