Hello everyone,
Here we are at the end of Joe's chemotherapy and I can hardly believe it. Cycle 13 was short and sweet (not even 24 hours from admission to discharge). Cycle 14, the last cycle, will begin on Friday, August 13 (a lucky day for many reasons, not the least of which it is the day on which my brother, David was born) and continue until Tuesday, August 17. We have heard through the nurses grapevine that a party will be held at some point on the unit to celebrate the occasion. If you would like to send Joe an e-mail greeting you can do so through the hospital's patient e-mail greeting service here.
Joe will be done just in time to start 2nd grade the following week on August 23. He is really looking forward to seeing his hair again. Seth is off to sibling camp before he starts 7th grade. (http://www.childrenscancerprograms.com/)
September 1st will be another big day on our calendar. This will be the day that Joe's end of treatment tests (arm & chest x-rays & CT scans, a bone scan and an echocardiogram) will be done. We are looking for another positive round of clear, clear, clear results.
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth
what you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you omust travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
cathches the thread of all sorrow
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
likea shadow or a friend.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words, Eighth Mountain Press, 1995
I am hoping next time to share an on-line photo album with pictures from the summer (and maybe even a song!).
With love and gratitude,
Jenny together with Tom, Joe, Seth and Happy the dog