A sincere answer to a sincere question......

There are times when people tell you it's dark and you try desperately to hold on to the light.... Times when you want nothing more than to 'take your ball and go home'. But no one will let you. And even if you could, the reality is that 'home' you'll be heading off to won't be a familiar home. So you do one of two things--you either embrace everything you've come to believe, or you let go and surrender to the illusions others would have you believe.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not very good at buying into the beliefs of other people. I've never been of that make or model. I'm going to go and discover for myself, thanksverymuch. I might end up agreeing with you in the end, but that's MINE to decide.....and I'll decide that after I've gone out to discover for myself.

More than once I was told to get my affairs in order and more than once I got to reckon with how I wanted to leave this planet. It never felt like a choice because this wasn't the scenario I'd wished for. It wasn't something I could wrap my head around. So I defied it and denied it--and came back from the 'odds'. It wasn't suppose to happen--not in the realms of the physical, not with the understanding of earthly fellows in the progression of the disease.

And the other day, someone asked me about angels.

I was asked because I admitted.... "seen 'em".

Oh, I know.......people are going to laugh, close the browser and move on.

That's not why I've not shared about the experience before. It's not other's people's opinions that decided for me.
When you're visited, it's a very personal experience.
It's a moment between you and the messengers, one that I didn't want tainted or twisted.
And when I put things in black and white, sometimes I'm at a lack for words to describe the beauty, the darkness, the despair and the joy......and somehow I end up dissatisfied for the attempt and am left never quite feeling like I've done the moment the justice it's deserving of. Therein lies the tainting and twisting, for me...by me....
I'm not that fond of other's opinions. LOL
It's my own experiences that I need to hang on to with both hands for ALL they're worth.

Angels happened.

My best shot at sharing (and forgive however brief it sounds--time isn't a benchmark in those moments) would be the day that I showed up for induction therapy (that heavy dose of chemotherapy that starts the whole regiment they're going to follow up with) and I was to be sent home. Stubborn me--went without a driver because I'm always so sure I'm going to be in charge and 'just fine'. Let us not forget that I was one who timed how long it took the vomitting to begin so I could plan exactly where I would be able to go and what I could get accomplished before I needed to hole up in the bathroom for days on end. Stubborn me....

I didn't get to go home because they hospitalized me...I didn't get to go home because they almost lost me during the drip.

My sister's worse fear was that the disease wouldn't claim me, but that the cure would...


I remember settling in and listening to the headphones (music which I cannot listen to to this day without a sensory experience btw).
And I remember that hot, familiar feeling......and the rush of --something....
The pounding of my heart in my ears, the feel of the chair melting into me.....
And then came bits and pieces of the scurrying of people, the echoes and shadows of the flurry of activity around me.
Incandescent pain and surrealness of light and dark....a sense of being apart and a sense of being of one and at peace...opposites turning insideout to reveal the sameness, and sounds--voices to be heard but no words that followed...
And the angel.

And the stillness.
And the angel.

And the connectedness of light and air, the whisper of wings in flight without a breath.

And the angel....

Light, air, goodness and sweet, embracing peace.......the scent of forNOWness lingering.

Not speaking, not moving....standing away from the disconnection, the perfectly seen brightness in the blur of swirling colours turning to dust......

I woke up without a hint of where I was, but I very clear where I wasn't....which was in my car, heading home with my little buddy, the ice cream bucket.

But I had a hint of where I'd been.

And a hint of what had gotten taken from me....and what had become added to me....

(***Nope--I came back to read it and it just doesn't 'measure up'....)