As many of you know, Gabriele and I have been in Los Angeles while she receives treatment for her metastatic duodenal cancer. She is now 2 1/2 months post-Whipple procedure, which surgically removed the primary tumor, and is now getting ready to have radioactive beads injected through her hepatic artery to hit the liver tumor hard. Gabriele has been walking two to three miles a day, doing yoga and generalized muscle strengthening, and we not only have the gift of her three daughters to orchestrate the care and transportation of what seems to be hundreds of doctor appointments, but we also have our sons-in-law who walk with her and prepare fabulous meals for three families.
Gabriele decided she didn't watn to hide her illness or be ashamed of it but face it squarely--as an adventure, though an unchosen one. Each day brings us epiphanies about life, and gratitude, and the riches inherent in love. Suzanne has been writing about our adventure. If you haven't had access to her posts, here is her URL: http://walkingpapers.wordpress.com/category/gabriele-rico/
With love,
Gabriele and Richard
When
Death Comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes
and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and
snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the
measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg
between the shoulder blades,
I want to step
through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going
to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I
look upon everything
as a brotherhood
and a sisterhood,
and I look upon
time as no more than an idea,
and I consider
eternity as another possibility,
and I think of
each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy,
and as singular,
and each name a
comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all
music does, toward silence,
and each body a
lion of courage, and something
precious to the
earth.
When it's over, I
want to say: all my life
I was a bride
married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom,
taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I
don't want to wonder
if I have made of
my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to
find myself sighing and frightened
or full of
argument.
I don't want to
end up simply having visited this world.
--Mary
Oliver--
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