It has been a worst and best scenario this weekend. The best is that it was spring and all the leaves are light tiny green, the sky cloudless and bright blue, the birds nesting with delighted calls. The hummingbirds are back and the garden is in full harvest mode. We had some of the BEST weekend guests and Andy made a great dinner with lots of vegetables from the garden enjoyed by all. I love my nephew, Dan, and his partner, Inia. We took a long walk with the dogs to the river. The dogs loved wallowing in the mud and came up with water weeds clinging to their faces, then shaking diamond drops into the crystal air. I love this family!
We kept very busy. Andy was in his workshop all Sunday making a piece of furniture for a friend, and I am working on the last tedious part of making a big quilt for my friend, Marie. I have loved this project, an homage to Kandinsky, but now I am trying to make the batting even with all the layers, and it stretches, so I constantly have to reposition the pins.
And all the while I am thinking those horrid thoughts. Do I have breast cancer? The biopsy was done on Thursday. I am bruised and sore, trying not to lift anything heavy. They promise they will let me know asap. But I have had to endure a long weekend of not knowing. In my mind I have many scenarios. If the biopsy is positive my life will change for the immediate future. Radiation? Chemo? Will I feel awful? Will I lose my beautiful curly hair? (The only physical feature I can count on.)
I have told only a few close people because I don't want to alarm anyone if this is a big nothing. All during the weekend I am thinking of the friends and family I know who have had the bad diagnosis - and survived. I think also of all the people I know who have had to endure such travails and continue on with their interesting and energetic lives. I think of those people with terrible diagnoses of disease who continue on. Who am I to be anxious? My husband conquered prostate cancer.
I am sixty six years old. I have always been in perfect health, energetic and fit. I do not have to dance on one leg or blow into a computer to communicate. At night, looking up at the stars, I have rejoiced in my good fortune, my good life full of children, friends, good work and happy times. At my age (though I think of myself still as the person I was at ten), I have come to realize that I have certainly had a good run for my money, and if I were to die tomorrow, it would be maybe o.k.
But now, with the scare of the possibility of something life threatening, I realize that I don't want to die soon. I am curious about what will happen in the world. I want to see how my grandchildren turn out, I want to finish my book and know who will be the next president, and how it will be to spend some retirement years with my interesting spouse. I have quilts to make and gardens to grow and community work to address. I have so much stuff to do!
In my younger years, when things were in the balance, I made deals with some sort of god. But now I am making no bargains. What will be will be and I shall deal.
IT WAS A BIG NOTHING! I am o.k. (not counting the colorful after effects of a biopsy.) So I went outdoors and put in another flower garden and watched the hummingbirds whiz by.
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