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Candle of Hope It's back! Long standing patrons at Soul Food know that my husband Darryl and I walked the cancer path when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer in June 2000. Three years later it has returned and we are back on the cancer treadmill. The news that Darryl has cancer in his bowel again has sent concentric ripples swirling through my world. After taking biopsies during a routine examination of the colon our surgeon sat, grim eyed, steeling himself to tell us that he had found a narrowing within the bowel and that Darryl would have to have major surgery. His eyes confirmed what we knew in our hearts - we were back on the treadmill. Days have passed! I have made all the phone calls, written the emails and notified family and friends. We have tried to pick up the pieces and retain some normalcy, to continue to live. Sometimes we succeed and for blessed moments we laugh and joke, work, shop and go about our business before the operation that will plummet him back to where we were three years ago. But then, seemingly out of nowhere we are stabbed with the ice shard of reality. I tell a soul mate that there is this ice shard stabbing into my back and she writes to tell me that... "That IS what it feels like, an ice shard, it’s cold and sick and it strikes when you are thinking about something else and going about your business suddenly it is there sticking in you . . . ice. Sharp. Right between the shoulder blades, right between your breasts, right in your gut . . .but if you take the metaphor and embrace it, you may find that ICE WILL MELT. My metaphor had touched a chord! My metaphor not only resonated for someone else but provided a way of seeing and offered a way forward. Perhaps, as she suggests, if I take the shard of ice and look at it, analyze it and embrace it the dammed thing will melt sooner rather than later. Metaphors are my way of seeing. They enable me to name that which cannot be named. This journal is a tribute to the power of the metaphor. The most recent entries appear first.
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