Turbo Cancer: Day 119 - October 8, 2022

Faith Group Picnic

On this day, last year, my mom wrote:

Yesterday, I was in a funk. Wanted to go to the faith group picnic - cool weather and rainy. Would have to sit out in the carport. Felt it was too chilly. Low blood counts - didn’t want to risk going inside. Linda also didn’t think it was a good idea. Went back and forth all day, but ended up not going. First time I felt kind of imprisoned by disease and chemo. But I think it is a good sign I care enough to WANT to go out even when I don’t.

I’ve avoided infection so far, I’d like to keep it that way.

Thank you for today. Lenore coming. Maybe I’ll start painting. 😊.

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My mom had been excited about the faith group picnic. This group of friends was precious to her.

During the first year of the pandemic, my mom came over to my house every day. We walked my dogs together. We talked. We discussed all the scary things that were happening in the world. My mom often brought these conversations around to something that had been said in the faith group.

The group was made up of very kind, incredibly supportive, older people who had lived through their own life trauma (as we all do). These were people who had suffered, but who had transcended life’s suffering through faith.

The members of this group were incredibly supportive of my mom, throughout her disease. They showered her with love, food, flowers, cards, visits and prayers. Their kindness was inspirational.

My mom had been hopeful about attending the picnic. Not long before this day, she had been feeling good. So good that she had intended to go to the picnic without me.

She had a plan. Her friend, George, would pick her up and drive her. She would find a comfortable place to sit.  She would have some good food and some good conversation. After an hour, George would bring her back home, just in time for her afternoon nap.

My mom had been so happy, imagining the picnic day.

I don’t think it was just the weather and the blood counts that kept her home. Something was starting to change in her. There was an almost imperceptible sense of distance. It seemed as if she was becoming less connected to her life on earth.

The short time of feeling better had filled my mom with visions of the future. She had almost felt like her old self again. She had dreamed of, one day, becoming her old self again.

The return of the pain was a huge disappointment. The hope that had been born of those good days was suddenly living in the past.

With the return of the pain, my mom’s vision of the future, once again, included illness and suffering.

This would have been a good day for my mom to attend a faith group gathering. She needed the uplifting presence of her friends. The picnic would have been an important reminder that God was with her throughout all her trials. But cold weather and illness had her debilitated. She was stuck at home, once again, living at the mercy of the painful lump in her groin.

My mom missed the event, but her friends brought the picnic to her. Throughout the afternoon, people stopped by with trays of food and messages of friendship, love and prayer.

At the end of the day, my mom said she felt like she had been the guest of honor at a picnic that she didn’t attend. Every member of the faith group had either stopped by, called or texted to tell my mom that she had been there in spirit.

Her spirit became overjoyed.

In a moment of darkness, through the love of friends, my mom was showered with light.

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The Next Day:

To know the whole story, start at the beginning: