I heard this poem, The Summer Day by Mary Oliver, this past week, actually during a Yizkor service where Danny’s name (my dad) was read. It stuck with me. If a cancer diagnosis does nothing else, it certainly makes one aware – at least it has made me aware – of my one wild and precious life.
Now, I do hope to have another life. I do hope to come back again, to live and love again, and to spend a great deal of time in a garret apartment in Paris.
But whether or not that is a possibility, I do want to live fully and loudly this one wild and precious life.
I am still in the midst of the mud. Chemo is definitely cumulative. It is hard. In fact, it’s still very hard.
And I can also notice my yellow birds (a bit less bright yellow right now, but still coming to say hello!), the sunshine, the changing leaves.
I can sit in the warmth of an electric blanket a dearest sent to me (so that I can sit outside and watch the birds, the sunshine, the changing leaves) and feel also the warmth of their love and care. I can let my big brother hold me and care for me and make me dinner. I can delight when either (or both) of my kiddies call me for ten minutes just to say hello. I can bask in the love and light in my heart and home and life.
I can let all the love and joy in and through me, like the white light I envision washing over me when I meditate. I can continue to broadcast love and joy to those around me, like the way I envision myself standing at the top of a mountain in a power pose of brilliance and love when I meditate.
I can live my wild and precious life even as I am still weak and weary and fatigued and “stuck” in one place.
What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
I’d love to hear your thoughts, and please share this post with others if it resonates with you!
Photo by Catalin Pop on unsplash
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