Waning

Life Snip

It is now November 19, 2005. Another season wanes. In this Utah desert “blossoming like a rose” things are still growing, but slowly. Since October I have done nothing, absolutely nothing in my garden. I feel sad about this as I wander the pathways, seeing overgrown plants flop this way and that, unkempt, like a bunch of drunken sailors. There is a reason for this lack of care in my garden. I’ve been struggling with the discovery of another lump in my lower abdomen. Since a diagnosis of ovarian cancer last February, a lump is a major call for alarm.

So September and October were spent squeezing doctor visits around work schedules, as I was gearing up for a major event the first week of November which necessitated 12 plus hour work days for two weeks. “Just a hernia,” the doctor said. No reason for fear—often happens after a major surgery like I endured last January. But tests, just to be sure. Then blood in the stools one weekend and a colonoscopy and more surgery—but the news is good. It was just a hernia. They opened me and poked around for a visual confirmation of what the tests showed—no cancer. Now I’ve been taped up from the inside out, sealed with staples on the final layer of flesh and laid out in my bed to heal. I roll slowly to my side, like a floundering whale. The incision bites and stings.

I wander my garden paths unable to make order from the chaos, unable to bend, squat, reach, stretch. The earth is forgiving though. She swallows the seeds spilled from the dying season. Next spring she will unfurl the miracle of life again. It is winter and I will wait. I will heal.