LIGHT Issue 3

ISSUE 3

l e a d e r s i g n i t i n g g e n e r at i o n a l h e a l i n g a n d t r a n s f o r m at i o n

How might we reimagine healing & transformation

with cancer

through art, letters, stories, & poetry?

@Copyright 2025 LIGHT Magazine All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the editor, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Opinions expressed are the opinions of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher.

LIGHT Magazine is published annually.

To submit entries and learn more about LIGHT, visit www.light4ph.org.

ISSN 2837-0015 (Print) ISSN 2837-0023 (Digital)

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l e a d e r s i g n i t i n g g e n e r at i o n a l h e a l i n g a n d t r a n s f o r m at i o n

MASTHEAD

editors Juliet Iwelunmor Idia Thurston

creative Creative Direction

Alexis Engelhart

Layout & Design

Bianca Kipp

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contributors Abieyuwa Adeseiye

Jessica Mustafa

Abiola Ojo

Joel Savishinsky

Abdulsalam Kawu Shittu

Leyelle M.G.

Bashirudeen Opeyemi

Mark Strohschein

Caroline Johnson

Mesoma Okeke

Clay Matthews

Natalie Reid

Cooper Harrison

Olamide Balogun

Cortney Davis

Sai Furukawa

Emily Rubin

Susan Dambroff

Florence Hosea

Thad DeVassie

Israel Olugbodi

Tina Bethea Ray

James Landwehr

Valerie Gibbons

partners Northeastern University Wake Forest School of Medicine Radiant Health Magazine Renike Artistry

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis 4950 Children’s Place St. Louis, MO 63110 @light4publichealth 4

@light4ph

@light4ph

@light4ph

artwork by Alison Kruse

a note from the editor

A little over three years ago, my sister-in-law, Angie, was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and within 3 months of her diagnosis, she passed away. Since then, I have been surrounded by cancer—its probabilities and its possibilities for healing and transformation. So too has the public. In a culture of cultivated actions and passive actions on how to involve (or manipulate) the public with their own health, creativity often appears in the margins. Yet, the job of transforming the public’s health, particularly following a pandemic, to accommodate their real needs and fondest aspirations cannot be done if there is no room for creativity. All of us have long understood the value of creativity as a potent

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force for healing. We know that the goals of true public health have not been reached, but there are handwritings on the walls everywhere, all of which read, “LIGHT! LIGHT! Now!” written by the public for the public’s health.

Here at LIGHT, we set out three years ago with a lofty mission to put the public firmly into public health, mobilizing efforts for worthy and lasting results with public health that is real, engaging, adaptable, and lasting. LIGHT has since provided a public forum for the introduction, examination, discussion, and debate on public health challenges and strengths. The LIGHT infant which, in 2021, conceived of the necessity to let the public speak, however it chooses, is slowly growing into its childhood years. Born in travail, we still dare to stand in solidarity with the public for as long as it needs leaders igniting generational healing and transformation.

LIGHT is still young at heart and will never presume to rest on its laurels when there are still miles to go to truly shine, reflect, kindle, illuminate, and brighten

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EDITOR’S NOTE

spaces for health, particularly in reimagining healing and transformation with cancer. Today more than ever, we are grateful for cancer’s many vocabularies like radiated kryptonite or Amazon women (Caroline Johnson, Language of Cancer, page 9), which stay buried in our memories. We stand in solidarity with whatever lies in front of us, whether a dream or a gaggle of women adorned with necklaces as they rise, resisting their breast cancer diagnosis (Susan Dambrof, What’s in Front of Me, page 33). We know cancer survivors mirror and help guide so many through their struggles as compatriots, sitting in silence or sharing similar experiences in the face of aggressive blood cancers (Valerie Gibbons, that show unwavering courage—letters that reveal how life, for example, doesn’t end with a cancer diagnosis but begins anew with opportunities for resilience, allowing our readers to transform potentially tragic experiences into hope and

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Unchained, page 74). In this effort to center the public, we look forward to letters

perseverance (Cooper Harrison, Lit Up Skies, page 91).

The creative works within this issue, the art, stories, letters, and poetry, all centered on cancer, should be seriously studied for the rich meaning they hold in the many ways to end cancer as we know it. Here at LIGHT, we turn to creativity for all the ways it relates to our experiences, connects with us, transcends limits, and pushes us beyond our horizons. We know that our language, words, bodies, and even the ways we knit yarn while waiting for our appointments (Clay Matthews, The Waiting Room, page 14) help summon a collective freedom that enables us to break the silence we all feel with cancer. This silence must be healed and transformed if we are to collectively end it for all, with all our strength that rattles reason (Leyelle M.G., Consciously Close, page 119).

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POETRY

The Language of Cancer submission by Caroline Johnson I Before my teenage sister got bone cancer we would listen to her play Jim Croce, Scott Joplin, Neil Diamond, John Denver.

After the diagnosis, she continued to play, leaning into the piano keys and pumping the amplified pedal with her good leg.

The day my sister died, my father hung up the phone with the doctor who told him they had turned off my sister’s life support.

He shook his head like a weary mule too tired to pull its load. I wish I had taken him up in my arms so that we both could sob on each other’s shoulders.

Instead, I ran outside to play with Johnny B.

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When she was dying, sometimes I would sit on the floor behind our living room couch and look out a window at the stars. I didn’t know then how to pray. I would spend my recess at school throwing a red rubber ball against a brick wall, over and over again.

artwork by Anji Woodley

It was autumn and the leaves were changing.

I wish I could say I talked to Johnny about cancer.

Instead, we climbed our tree house, shot rocks from homemade slingshots onto neighbors’ lawns.

When his mother asked me how Debbie was doing, I looked down at my 8-year-old hands, squinted my eyes, and said nothing. Silence was an old friend.

My other sister, on hearing the news, left the house carrying a bottle of Woolite. She marched one long block to a long-time friend of the family who had asked to borrow the detergent. The Woolite bottle had no cap.

THE LANGUAGE OF CANCER

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POETRY

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When she was dying, sometimes I would sit on the floor behind our living room couch and look out a window at the stars. I didn’t know then how to pray.

THE LANGUAGE OF CANCER

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POETRY

II Creole is an oral language that is a serenade when spoken aloud, with a lilting melody that loses its power once written down. The syntax becomes tortured and dies. Like Latin, it loses its life.

I’ve never spoken Creole or heard it, but I imagine it is like music. You become alive when playing the piano or guitar. The melody lifts spirits, the songs connect hearts. But if you just look at the black notes on the page, they mean nothing.

III

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As the years passed, I learned all of the songs Debbie played. I practiced every day, and sometimes my parents would ask me to play for dinner guests.

Full of liquor, tears streaming down his face, my father remembered his oldest daughter through my music.

The dinner guests listened patiently, picking at their Steak Diane and sipping their Chianti.

More than forty years later, my wig safely stowed in the attic, my new hair, chemo-soaked, lies in tight curls against my scalp. I swallow pills each morning and night, a scar emblazoned on my chest like radiated kryptonite, a stoic reminder of all the Amazon women before me, survivors who cauterized their right breast to better fit their bow and arrow, or so the legend goes.

I understand a new language. But like written Creole, cancer’s vocabulary stays buried with the memory of all the casseroles the neighborhood ladies kindly made so long ago for our family. A tricky vernacular, fear keeps me from blurting out my secret. Like my sister, I wear a prosthesis, stand strong and tall, but when I play “Annie’s Song” or “The Entertainer,” the dead language comes to life, and I join the ghosts who wake up and sing.

THE LANGUAGE OF CANCER

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POETRY

The Waiting Room submission by Clay Matthews

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In Lexington, Kentucky I sit at the cancer center waiting for my appointment with a chair.

There is nothing exotic about this place anymore, nor the magazines covered with beaches and brilliant white teeth.

My people are: hairless and handicapped, in wheelchairs and sock hats brought by a local group who crochets them— in memory, perhaps, of someone they’ve loved and lost. Bless them.

Now and then I hear the IV machines screech, and know that for someone the session is done, and they’ll now move on to the slow and inward sickness we face each round to hopefully, potentially

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get better. And I am one of them—forty years old and still coming to terms with it all, Elizabeth— weeping a little sometimes when I walk past the children’s wing of the hospital and think about my daughter waking up, like you, to the bigness and strangeness of the world.

Outside the rain comes on, the children are in school while people sit in cubicles and debate another election.

It’s still November, and we take our turns being called.

We’ve learned to be patient here (after all, we are patients).

Sometimes I imagine all of us huddled up like a team.

Bringing our hands together, we close our eyes and pray for the others, every single one, to be saved.

artwork by Laura Meggers

for Elizabeth Bishop and the UK Markey Cancer Center

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artwork by Dionte Walker

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WINTER SOLSTICE, 2021

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SECTION

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POETRY

WINTER SOLSTICE, 2021

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On the way home we stopped to tell my teenage son the news...

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SECTION

On the shortest day of the year— when gentle light places hands on a dim gray world— my mother was diagnosed with stage 2A lung cancer.

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We traversed black ice on the way to the hospital my father pointing out countless hawks perched atop telephone wires ready to strike their prey.

I envisioned dead mice littering the road.

On the way home we stopped to tell my teenage son the news knocking on the door only to be greeted by 3-year-old Wesley, his buoyant stepbrother.

Come in! he said, motioning us inside.

We could have been burglars or murderers there to thrash him or kidnap him, but he smiled with innocence and unearned trust.

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SECTION

He ran right to my mother, a woman he didn’t even know, hugging her leg like a lost aunt or a missing toy, as if he already knew.

I almost cried then.

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When my mother told my son, she wept in his arms and said: I don’t want to die, I’m too young, I have too many things to do.

My son was caught off guard: He held on, stayed strong.

He would not surrender hope or tears.

I knew my mother wouldn’t forget the pain of recognition, weeks of radiation and chemo, but did she remember that hug from the toddler?

I wanted to tell her: I don’t know much about death, but that is why we are alive.

TITLE

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Your turn: Think of a time when innocence or kindness completely changed how you saw a tough situation. What did you learn?

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STORIES

The Unit of Pain

submission by Abdulsalam Kawu Shittu

LIGHT MAGAZINE

“The shifting of rocks is deep, deep below, and it’s powerful and scary down there, but all we feel on the surface is a slight tremor. Only a slight tremor.”

Khaled Hosseini

artwork by Laura Meggers THE UNIT OF PAIN

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The doctor’s words hung in the air, “Complete remission is more the register than ‘gone,’ but yes, sir, time will tell,” when my husband inquired, “Is that it? The cancer is... gone?”

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I chuckled softly at the doctor’s attempt at optimism, though it probably came out as a grunt. Time, I learned, became an intricate metric of my existence; its measures evolved within the unnerving, pallid white walls of the oncology ward, my sanctuary for seven months. In that confined space, I played an arduous game of hide and seek with time, fortunate not to fall short. I discerned the hour by the changing nurse shifts, recognized Fridays by my children’s visits after school. The persistent beep of the ECG machine echoed promises of the next moment. Saturdays brought fragrant bouquets, tokens of goodwill from friends and family, while visiting hours were marked by hushed conversations in the hallways. And Mondays, ah, they arrived with the oncology specialist’s rounds.

menced, followed by radiotherapy three weeks later. Three weeks post-radiotherapy, I found myself discharged, a bittersweet joy tinged with the reality of surgical sutures now adorning my chest. They sprawled across my skin, bearing witness to the new existence I had to embrace. Yet I was undeterred; gratitude blossomed in my heart for the small blessings, among them my continued height of five feet seven inches above the ground.

My once-familiar body had transformed into something alien.

Amidst it all, I stood, a revolting upper body blemished with scars, a bald head crowning a bloated form. Overcoming cancer proved only half the battle; the other half was convincing myself and society that I remained unchanged. Everywhere I went, I felt the weight of stares and hushed whispers from onlookers. I desired no pity-party; I yearned not for special treatment but to be seen as the person I had always been, especially by my immediate family. I vividly remember the first time I returned home Three weeks after braving a double after my discharge. Mubarak, my mastectomy, chemotherapy com- youngest child, then four years

STORIES

reflected in my husband’s gaze. It wasn’t his fault; he weathered the storm with me, enduring the fragile moments in the cancer ward, offering prayers, color, and strength, and even boldly trading his widow’s peak for a bald scalp alongside me. And when I grimaced in pain and cried for the ECG to reach a flatline, he would always comfort me, urging me to stay strong. “I’ll sail the lows with you, Eejit, always, just as we’ve flown the highs,” he would say in dulcet tones while gently squeezing my hands. Yet, change had etched its marks, and I, too, had shifted. Not by choice, or so I believed.

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old, hadn’t seen me for almost a year. He had been considered too young to witness the horrors I endured during my hospital stays, unlike his older siblings who visited me weekly. As he came back from school, he greeted his father and siblings but hesitated upon seeing me, uncertainty clouding his eyes. I avoided his gaze, fearing that my sickened appearance might terrify him. He stood there, staring at me for a moment, then quickly retreated to his room. My heart sank. Moments later, he emerged, tugging at my gown with excitement, exclaiming, “Mummy, look at the Spider-Man shirt Dad got for me!” He mimicked a web-slinging motion. I couldn’t hold back my tears as I lifted him into my embrace, grateful that I hadn’t appeared too frightening for him to recognize. I wouldn’t have held it against him if he had; beyond everything, a black Voldemort was bound to send any child into flight, heels touching the back of their heads.

Despite my reluctance, he became my anchor, guiding me back into the world. He tirelessly sought out the best survivor support programs, trying to mend the tears in my shattered being.

The idea of a breast prosthesis or reconstruction surgery held no appeal for me. Instead, I faced the world with a low buzz cut, dark My marriage, too, bore the weight shades, a flat chest, and occaof change. The woman in the mir- sionally a fez cap, often mistaken ror was a stranger, a truth subtly for a man. I didn’t resent the bus

THE UNIT OF PAIN

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STORIES

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drivers or anyone else who mis- virginity tests. The revelation judged me; after all, my appear- that “intact hymen” tests were ance defied the societal norms scientifically baseless and of femininity in these western unreliable struck a chord. I parts of Nigeria, my homeland. learnt men could also suffer from On some days, I found humor breast cancer. Lol, I also grasped in a “Hey, Mister” misidentifi- the unit of pain, Dol. Yet what cation, allowing myself a bitter intrigued me the most was the chuckle. Most days, when the information I unearthed during blunder came from someone my frantic quest for survival who knew me from before, I options after my biopsy test feigned amusement, masking returned positive for Stage 1 my pain until I returned home. breast cancer. In my nocturnal There, in the quiet of my room, quest for knowledge the night I let the frustration seep into after my positive biopsy results, my pillow in droplets and then I delved into the intricacies of streams. And then, summoning breast cancer. As dawn broke, every ounce of resilience, I lift- my exhaustive research could ed my chin, met my own gaze be summed up in two words: in the mirror, and murmured, ‘ignorance’ and ‘lifestyle.’ I saw “Life’s hard. Get a helmet.” the bigoted mortality rates of breast cancer among black Before cancer gatecrashed my women as a product of our own life, my passions revolved around making, shaped by ignorance family and fashion. Work was a and lifestyle choices. necessity. However, the sterile precincts of a hospital ward The statistics painted a grim pictransformed me profoundly. ture: women of color, like me, An enlightening speech from a faced the lowest survival rates nurse, albeit casually overheard for all breast cancer subtypes. during her phone call, shattered Black women, I discovered, were my preconceived notions about twice as likely to develop the

THE UNIT OF PAIN

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challenging-to-treat triple-nega- Peace Prize nominations from tive breast cancer compared to 2019 through 2021 intrigued their white counterparts. Yet a me. Despite not devising specifray of hope emerged amidst the ic environmental solutions, she bleakness—30 percent of breast managed to raise global awarecancers could be prevented ness about climate change, espethrough lifestyle changes. The cially among young people. They mortality numbers validated my called it “the Greta effect.” relative perspective; I witnessed educated and learned individ- Her story resonated deeply, inspiruals seek unconventional treat- ing me to contemplate the power ments for all types of cancer of awareness in effecting change. from purported voodoo (juju) experts, underlining the prevail- “Thunberging cancer” became ing ignorance. a transformative odyssey from a personal struggle into a beacon of In the midst of my convales- inspiration for those weathering cence, I encountered a wom- the same storm. Finding triumph an who battled cervical cancer in spreading awareness, I aimed and implored me to read stories to dispel the misconception in my of resilient women who trans- local community that cancer was formed adversity into opportuni- a mystical curse to be ashamed ty, refusing to succumb to despair of, an ailment to be warded off or wallow in self-pity. I stumbled by pastors, shamans, or clerics. upon the remarkable journeys No, it was a medical condition, of Malala and Greta Thunberg. one that could be effectively manGreta, diagnosed with Asperg- aged if detected early. There was er’s syndrome during her early no shame in it, especially when it teenage years, captured my at- concerned sensitive areas like the tention. Her consecutive Nobel genitals or breasts.

STORIES

Above all, I found immense fulfillment in helping new mastectomy survivors reintegrate into society and fully embrace their second chance at life in the survivor support program I joined. My soft skills that I had honed over the years as a sales representative proved invaluable. Initial meetings with cancer survivors invariably began with these words of congratulations: “The profound changes beneath the surface, where cells multiply uncontrollably in deep, powerful tremors, mirror the hidden battles you’ve bravely fought and won alone. We, on the surface, merely sense a slight tremor. Just a slight tremor.” It’s a message I have learned to beautifully convey in my local dialect, Yoruba, for It’s been three years since I’ve those who found the King’s lanlived without mammary glands, guage a communication barrier. and for over a year and a half, I had embarked on a mission to I let them know happily ever educate women and men about afters aren’t bestowed; they are breast cancer. Initially met with choices we make. And when resistance, I learned to create an asked, “How was it for you?” I atmosphere conducive to these responded, “It was a life-threatcrucial conversations. ening changing experience.”

THE UNIT OF PAIN

LIGHT MAGAZINE

I didn’t seek grandeur; my fulfillment came from enlightening mothers, daughters, and families about the little things such as checking for a tumour. I advocated for prevention through lifestyle changes, urging those with a family history of cancer to undergo mammograms or biopsy tests early in life. Not everyone welcomed my advice with open arms. Some saw it as intrusive, but I persisted, knowing the potential impact.

My own family embraced lifestyle changes with understanding, recognizing my intent to safeguard their well-being. Mubarak would always throw a fit when his treats were supplanted by fruits and vegetables.

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POETRY

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What’s in Front of Me artwork by Dionte Walker WHAT’S IN FRONT OF ME

collage by Bianca Kipp

submission by Susan Dambroff

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I dream/a gaggle of women adorned with necklaces/ take to an elevator

POETRY

WHAT’S IN FRONT OF ME

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to rise /in some kind of resistance/ that takes them up and up.

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POETRY

Autumn leaves painted on the hospital ceiling I stare myself up and away

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elm, oak, Japanese maple

In the waiting room, a woman says she drove round and round in the parking lot so many times she got dizzy, her husband has ALS, there was no space to park, shouldn’t the sign say full?

When the nurse offers her a tissue and water, she says what she really needs is a Bloody Mary.

Her story. My story.

One day I have a mammogram and the next day I have Cancer.

I dream a gaggle of women adorned with necklaces take to an elevator to rise in some kind of resistance that takes them up and up.

WHAT’S IN FRONT OF ME

collage by Bianca Kipp

What’s in front of me In the doctor’s office a painting a line of women some with two breasts some with one some with none

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My young chest, the first pucker, when I got my first bra, when I stopped wearing one, the peasant blouses, that easy bounce All the losses dog, cat, mother, father, my red checkered shirt with snaps, my favorite scarf, credit card, the bookmark that falls out and I can’t find my place

My friend Nick is always looking down when he walks the city streets, afraid he might miss something, has a collection of keys, earrings, buttons.

When friends come by he shows them his bowl of things, take what you want, he says.

POETRY

I dream I have a vase full of flowers. A woman asks for more and more, and I keep on giving, but when she wants the last flower, I say no.

Nick says he feels like if he sees something left behind, he has to take it, has to give it a home.

It has to belong somewhere.

What’s in front of me Cancer with its hard C and its soft one I choose the second one an easier curve

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I find a rust colored hat, a wooden rooster all dressed in blue.

bells of flowers shimmering like red dresses petals of white stars the black cat that glides through one back door then another belonging to wherever he goes.

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ART

Love Is Healing submission by Abieyuwa Adeseiye

in the artist’s own words...

My artwork matters because it sheds light on a holistic approach to cancer care. It emphasizes that the warmth and care from loved ones can be as vital as any medication or procedure. This reimagining of the healing process urges a shift in the way we approach cancer treatment, highlighting the need for emotional well-being alongside medical interventions.

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My artwork offers a unique perspective on healing and transformation in the context of breast cancer. It reimagines the journey by highlighting the invaluable role of love and support from friends and family. While medical treatments are undeniably crucial, the emotional and psychological aspects of battling cancer often go underestimated.

In an age where technological advancements often dominate the conversation around healthcare, my art reminds us of the profound impact that compassion and empathy can have on the path to recovery. It encourages a more comprehensive, patient-centric approach to healing, fostering a sense of hope and empowerment that is vital for those facing this challenging journey.

LOVE IS HEALING

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POETRY

A Gratitude for the Condition Nobody Asks For

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submission by Thad DeVassie

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It took up temporary residency in my body, then permanent residency in my mind. It ushered me into a community of brave living people. It taught me gratitude, even for the deep descent into dark valleys, alerted me to action—and inactions—requiring change. It reminded me that I am going to die (just not today), created within me a renewed sense of urgency, awakened me from wasting what little time we get. But instead of speeding me up, it slowed me down, gave me focus, made me mentally weaker before I became stronger, permitted my emotions to move untethered, helped me reevaluate what was necessary, needed, and enough. This cancer forced me to let go of that which I cannot control, brought me closer to people I love, for my reason for being, and to my maker. It invited new people into my sphere, prompted me to question everything I put into my body, reminded me to be in the moment, showed me everything I squandered and missed, and fueled what I desire to reclaim going forward. This cancer lost its fearful grip on me, pushed me to do more of what I love, and less of what is expected, nudged me to rethink next acts with boldness, to write new narratives, regardless of who gets to read it.

Instead I point to A Summer’s Day, the Mary Oliver poem of knowing and unknowing with a call to action we forget to heed because we have been, and continue to be, distracted from living this one life, living in contrast to existing, and plodding through, and surviving.

Living: it is what this cancer has been unable to stop. It hasn’t won, prevailed, or proved itself insurmountable. And because of this, while I am still with the living, I cannot curse this cancer. It is part of me, corrupted like other parts of this whole. It has my attention. I give it everything I have. In a fight to rid the body of cancer forces a reckoning, a reckoning that has become a healing, a healing of things with nothing to do with the disease, and a gratitude for the condition nobody asks for.

A GRATITUDE FOR THE CONDITION NOBODY ASKS FOR

collage by Bianca Kipp

LIGHT MAGAZINE

artwork by Laura Meggers

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Your turn: How has a challenge you never asked for shaped you in ways you didn’t expect? How did it shift your perspective or teach you gratitude?

POETRY

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submission by Joel Savishinsky

Now he had green hair, feral enough at fourteen to shame the moon.

Only a few staff were still around who had known his younger self.

The animals and coloring book, too, had left long ago with some other child.

Now he lived on music, protein shakes, and the shakiest of hopes. He found a girlfriend in the next room. One evening a nurse heard him say to her: one of us will live, and one of us will die. How shall we choose?

A year later he had no hair. His almost grown-up eyes were closed much of the time, his nights spent conquering the self without help from the sutras.

On a Tuesday, in the morning, he stood up, pushed up the window as if he was opening a heart. Back in bed, headphones on, the colors of life all washed away by a chemical bath, his hands were now in his parents’ keeping as his blue-veined lids slowly eased down, leaving his last looks lost in the black and white words of the nurse’s notes.

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THE COLORING BOOK

artwork by Anji Woodley

The Coloring Book

He had red hair, almost white in certain slants of light.

It was only his first time on the ward, and the signs were good.

Barely three years into his life, most of the stuffed creatures were larger than he was, and he liked hiding and being buried among them. He loved his coloring book, and with his crayons he re-made creation to fit his palette: a smiling blue lion, a grinning green giraffe, a playful purple monkey.

The spectrum’s hues each found a home in the peaceable kingdom of his mind.

A Letter to Uzoma: Journeying Through Shadows submission by Bashirudeen Opeyemi

artwork by Brenda Ciardiello

LETTERS

Dear Uzoma, I write this under the neem tree where we once played as children, the air filled with the scent of rainsoaked earth and the distant chatter of our village, Amaigbo. It’s been years since the whispers of cancer became a shouting reality in your life. And in these lines, I find a canvas to paint a story—our story, marred yet beautiful, silent yet resonant.

I remember the day the news came, as heavy as the humid air before the rain. Your laughter, once the soundtrack of my days, faded into a silence broken only by the occasional cry of a hawk overhead.

Cancer— that word seemed so foreign, yet it swiftly made its home within our realities. It reminds me of the Harmattan winds—unexpected and transformative.

In Nigeria, where the roads are as rugged as our journey, we’ve seen many battles. But this, this was different. It was intimate, a battle fought in the silent corners of our hearts and the sterile coldness of hospital rooms. You’d always say, “We are Nigerians; we face our storms with our heads held high.” And so, you did, with every chemotherapy session, every wince of pain, and every hopeful smile that dawned after a restless night.

I’ve learned through your journey that healing isn’t just about the absence of illness but the presence of understanding, acceptance, and the reclamation of strength from the very jaws of despair. Through your eyes, I saw the duality of life and death—not as enemies but as dance partners, each leading at times, moving to the rhythm of an unseen drummer.

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Your courage rewrote the narrative of cancer in our community. It was no longer just a Western ailment, distant and unspoken, but a reality that touched the farmer in the fields and the teacher in the school. You made it a conversation at our local markets, among the vibrant fabrics and mounds of spices, under the very skies of our ancestors.

In your weakest moments, you found a language unspoken, an art that transcended the spoken Ibo and Yoruba, weaving tales of resilience in each bead of sweat and tear. Through your story, our community learned to embrace life and death not with fear but with a reverence for the intricate tapestry they weave in our existence.

Uzoma, you remain in us, a beacon of resilience. As the night cradles the earth and the stars appear like countless eyes of our forebears, I know your story will linger, a guiding light through the darkest nights and a whisper in the chaos of life.

With love and memories etched in the sands of time, Opeyemi A LETTER TO UZOMA: JOURNEYING THROUGH SHADOWS

collage by Bianca Kipp

Now, as the orange hue of sunset touches the horizon, I pen down these thoughts—not as a farewell but as a testament to the journey you traverse, a journey that many in our village, in Nigeria, and beyond continue to walk. You are not just a memory; you are a living, breathing legacy. Your life is a testament to the fact that even in the deepest pain, there is a possibility for an unlikely beauty, an unexpected strength.

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Your turn: Who is the most resilient person you know? How has their strength redefined what resilience means to you?

ART

An Allegory of Recovery submission by Israel Olugbodi

in the artist’s own words...

It reimagines healing and transformation with cancer using an effusive display of floral life as a visual medium. This was chosen in order to channel the overarching idea that sometimes there are losses you don’t necessarily heal from but can grow to accommodate and even flourish amidst.

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This painting is, first and foremost, a homage to a charming and dear friend I lost to cancer many years ago.

The efflorescent arrangement of flowers erupts in rebellious splendor from a vase bearing the cancer symbol, affirming that life, color, and beauty can endure and persist even in the middle of loss—represented by the tendrils that catch no light—and such anti-life.

I believe my submission matters because it highlights a relatively nuanced and critical perspective on what forms healing/recovery and change/ transformation can take in the presence or aftermath of cancer.

AN ALLEGORY OF RECOVERY

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POETRY

Once in a Poem I Wrote submission by Cortney Davis

there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you and when my daughter was dying,

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I wrote how I’d be there to carry her all the way home as I’d carried her, an infant, in my arms.

She’d discovered the mass in her breast one summer day as she tended her garden―happy in the sun, keeper of her house, of acres of Kansas wild flowers and tall prairie grass. Soon, my long-distance visits were punctuated by her surgeries and chemo rounds, then Covid’s distance―and too soon, cancer spread to bone, to lungs. One morning her eye half closed, cancer creeping through nerve and brain.

My late February visit wasn’t supposed to be the last.

In March, the slow but too quick failing, hospital bed crammed into her small bedroom, her kids hanging a birdfeeder by the window so she could hear

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the finches early morning songs.

I don’t want my kids dripping morphine under my tongue, she’d told me once, half joking, half serious.

I pledged I’d be there to tend her, become a nurse again,

said I made her cry, making plans without consulting her, taking away what little control she still had over her one life.

Mid-April, her oldest girl asked if now they should send for me. My daughter turned her head away.

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imagining how I’d climb into bed and hold her.

I wanted to visit in April, but she said no, too soon,

Still, we spoke every night, even the night that began the labored breathing, her final leaving. (stanza break) I want to shred those poems, burn them as promises I never meant to break. I still talk to her―good morning,

ONCE IN A POEM I WROTE

collage by Bianca Kipp

artwork by Annette Wüllner

I love you; good night―and in this poem I’m with her in her dying. I hold her, and in this poem, she lets me.

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“

So, dear self, take this time to reimagine what healing can be beyond the view you have now.

I believe in this process.

I surrender to the flow and watch wonders unfold and blossom gloriously...

LETTERS

artwork by Dionte Walker LETTER TO MY DYING SELF

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Letter to My Dying Self submission by Florence Hosea

Dearest Self, This strange version of myself met you here at the point of no return.

Being so many things I am not, I thought to myself, and yet here I am, staring back at myself in this mirror.

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You may appear to have control over my life right now in this lonely world of self-reflection where whispers of hope battle cancer’s misery, but you don’t dictate how I speak, think, and what I enjoy.

So I will start over, reimagining healing and altering what I once knew. I will patiently gather strength from within, for my light will shine in the face of this darkness, using resilience as a guiding factor even as I travel this perilous path.

I will be characterised by the grace of the human spirit within me and not by the challenges I confront outside. I will find consolation in the beauty that surrounds me, in nature’s soothing whispers and healing noises.

Patience will be my guiding light on this road, and my transformation will not be denied. I embrace vulnerability by bearing my scars, knowing that they are a monument to how far I have come.

So, dear self, take this time to reimagine what healing can be beyond the view you have now. I believe in this process. I surrender to the flow and watch wonders unfold and blossom gloriously. Let me reframe the game with love and hope and discover the beauty concealed in this flame, for healing and transformation are within my grasp.

Cancer, you do not own me: I own myself and am here to tell you I will survive.

Cancer is not a death sentence; it’s not a question to ignore. Speaking about cancer is not a taboo. I am diagnosed with cancer, but that’s not the end of my life.

Your Loving Self, Flower

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artwork by Dionte Walker LETTER TO MY DYING SELF

collage by Bianca Kipp

LETTERS

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STORIES

The Realm of Po (Night): A Moolelo (Story) of Spiritual Healing with Cancer submission by Sai Furukawa Mookuauhau (Genealogy)

THE REALM OF PO (NIGHT): A MOOLELO (STORY) OF SPIRITUAL HEALING WITH CANCER

LIGHT MAGAZINE

artwork by Laura Meggers

ing the message my popo tried to relay to me made me realize that Dark on a Monday night, my popo I must pay more attention to what (grandma) stood with one of her she and my other kupuna (ancesliving sisters in front of the door- tors) have been trying to tell me. way of the studio that I had been And it is through great reflection renting since I moved to Oahu of my mookuauhau that will help from Maui. Her lifeless demean- to illustrate how we might reimagor and beady eyes pierced into ine healing and transformation my moe uhane (sleeping spirit) as with cancer. if something was wrong. It had nearly been two months since she Apo (Acceptance) passed when I had this vision. The thought of no expression on her My spiritual beliefs were only face scared me, especially since I fostered when I began studying had never seen her this way before. Mauli Ola (Health and Well-beWhat was she trying to tell me? ing) as a student of a traditional Was she upset, or perhaps even Native Hawaiian healing acadeconfused, that her life had drasti- my in mid-2021. And they were cally changed within a two-week solidified only a week and a half timeframe? Why did her oncolo- after my popo had passed, a time gist recommend her to undergo when a guest speaker came to my surgery for the abdominal cancer Hawaiian langauge class to talk that she had been silently battling? about spirituality and her own gift Or could it have been due to my of being able to spiritually read grandpa changing the plans of people’s aura. During the class, burying her to keeping her ashes with about 20 students present, in their bedroom until it is time for she announced, “Someone here him to return to the realm of po has a gift.” A minute of silence (night)? My difficulty in ascertain- went by but was soon broken by

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her turning to me and saying, “It’s you.” I was prompted to share what I had been experiencing: my ability to connect with my kupuna through the realm of po and, in some instances, to lucidly dream. Upon the completion of my sharing, I was advised to accept my gift. Thus began an overwhelming sense of self-acceptance that led to a significant transformation of my understanding of the world.

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Hoolohi (Transformation)

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As I reflected on the profound encounter I had with the guest speaker, I recalled a dream that I had one night in April 2022. My father unexpectedly passed away. A calm darkness that permeated my surroundings was interrupted by a candle that had been lit. Such peaceful tranquility quickly transformed into gloom. Sadness, confusion, and denial that this could happen so soon consumed me. The next morning, I immediately texted my dad asking if he was okay, to which he replied that he was, in fact, okay. Exactly one month later, on one night in May 2022, my paternal grandma, my very own popo, unexpectedly passed away. My kupuna had already been trying to warn me that something was about to happen. It is exactly how Nalani Wilson Hokowhitu expressed

it in reference to Herb Kaneʻs dream about how the name of Hokulea came to be for the revitalization of canoe-sailing: “[The dream] reveals the presence of na kupuna, na aumakua, and the power of our Kanaka Maoli mookuaauhau to connect us, if we are open to the dreams and visions that our ancestors plant like seeds in our conscious and subconscious.”1 Hoʻonui (Expansion) My popo was guided to return to Las Vegas from Hawaii in April 2022 when she had accidentally forgot an envelope full of cash in her hotel room just a week or two prior; the hotel representative had notified her of the situation. During her short return there, she developed great difficulty walking and breathing, which rendered her wheelchair bound. She withstood the pain until it was too late. The opportunity to seek better healthcare treatment on the Continental United States had been missed. If only the hoailona (sign) had been acknowledged and acted upon during that time, I wonder if she would still be here with us today.

I believe our shared kupuna had been trying to reach me and my popo through my dream of my father and her second Las Vegas trip, respectively.

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Lōkahi (Unity) The struggle to understand how my popo could leave us so soon due to cancer continued for us, especially my papa, who had been her soulmate for nearly 60 years. My papa’s health and well-being followed in the direction of my popo’s passing until he returned to the realm of po in July 2023. Despite this tragic heartbreak,

they finally had the opportunity to be reunited. And so they were.

My popo and a younger man, who I presume to be my papa, visited me one night in early October 2023. I had taken a nap in their downstairs guest bedroom. And upon my wake, I made my way upstairs to the living room where one of my uncles, my grandparents’ youngest son, slept on a portable futon. Next to the kitchen, where my younger brother and other uncle, my grandparents’ eldest son, were hanging out and storytelling, my popo stood behind my uncle with the same lifeless demeanor and beady eyes she had when she first visited me over a year ago. Meanwhile, my papa stood to her left. Only I could see them. I shielded the view of my popo with my uncle’s body, only for her to peek back out at me. When I left towards the garage where my dad and stepmom had been, they quickly followed without saying a word. My actual wake was soon followed by the realization that their joint burial services were to happen exactly three weeks later.

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The current widespread misconception and discourse of spirituality as a factor of health led to our own lack of acknowledgement of the hoailona that had been readily apparent. I hope to alter this perception through decolonizing the way we currently think about health. Researching and revitalizing Native Hawaiian traditional healing practices as an alternative to Western medicine would forge a path for spirituality to be finally regarded as an important factor to someone’s health, albeit obstacles I already foresee, such as my own struggle to address the question: “Why is it that we have to prove that our health system and healing practices are effective under a Western framework?” Doing so without addressing this question could severely undermine and perhaps invalidate its efficacy from a Native Hawaiian standpoint.

My popo’s spirit remains with us, for we, her direct descendants, continue the Sunday dinners that she started nearly three years ago and that she wanted us to perpetuate beyond her passing. It

THE REALM OF PO (NIGHT): A MOOLELO (STORY) OF SPIRITUAL HEALING WITH CANCER

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has even helped to begin the healing process between two family members, her eldest and youngest sons, who had not talked to each other for over a year and a half due to a dispute prior to her departure. She ultimately brought us closer together. I hope to remain connected with her, among my other kupuna, through my piko manamana (~spiritual connection) and increased awareness that they remain present in my life and are always actively guiding me through life.

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consider spirituality as an important factor when determining someoneʻs overall health status? How can we ever live up to the motto of the United States of America, “In God We Trust,” that is plastered all over its currency for our constant reminder?

Transcending beyond this question by applying its concept to an indigenous perspective generates more questions.

Why are cultural healing practices considered inferior to Western medicine when indigenous epistemologies Spirituality and practices have resulted in better health outcomes for some patients?

My popo and the experiences I had Or perhaps, how is it that many popwith her within the last year made ulations, especially indigenous ones, me realize the significant importance continue to experience poor health spirituality has not only on her health outcomes despite the overwhelming and mine but on the health of all of rollout of Western-based health inius. My popo believed in this ideology tiatives? Reestablishing spirituality as as she was a devote Catholic. Whenev- an important component to someer anyone, especially within our fami- one’s health would allow the world to ly, became struck with illness, prayers be more open to perspectives beyond would be made in hopes that they those dominated by Western society, would get better. This cultural belief such as the healing process my family system makes me wonder: if a great experienced with the cancer that afmajority of the world affiliates with fected my popo. With this, the health some form of religion, whether that status of people across the world may be Christianity or not, why donʻt we greatly benefit.

THE REALM OF PO (NIGHT): A MOOLELO (STORY) OF SPIRITUAL HEALING WITH CANCER

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Many times, we are so preoccupied with chasing life

LOVE LIFE, BREATHE LIFE: A LETTER TO AUNT GABBY

LETTERS

LIGHT MAGAZINE

and climbing the ladder to the top that we forget our inner child...

artwork by Andrea Calisi 67

Love Life, Breathe Life: A Letter to Aunt Gabby submission by Abiola Ojo

LETTERS

Dear Aunt Gabby, Love life, breathe life.

These days, I wake up really early and take a stroll in the backyard. I stare at the beautiful clouds in the sky, wonderfully arranged in any order that fits our imagination. Then, I take a long breath of the fresh, clean air in gratitude for a new day.

Simple things like this were not things I ever thought of, but a brush with death taught me never to take the miracles of life for granted—the simple laughter at the dining table, lending a hand to someone at the grocery store, hanging out with the boys on weekends, going to watch recitals and football games.

Then the doctor then says those six words, and we are forced to stop. Those big things do not matter anymore as our cells start to wage the war of dominance within. Drips after drips, drugs after drugs, we eventually get the time to re-evaluate and take note of the things that really matter: the many dreams abandoned and the several relationships forfeited.

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Many times, we are so preoccupied with chasing life and climbing the ladder to the top that we forget our inner child—the one who would take risks and dance in the rain, the child who did not care about the world but laughed heartily through it.

As the hairs fall off, so do the veils. With the debilitating nausea comes the chance to walk through the several manuscripts tucked away on the desks. A simple look at the walls reveals old pictures of our goofy selves and a smile lights up our faces.

artwork by Andrea Calisi

Given that one chance, we go without looking back. We spread our wings and fly until we reach our destination. Sometimes, the fear of recurrence lurks somewhere in our hearts, but we slowly shut our eyes to it—not only for us but for the many people who never got that second chance. We stay strong so that, in the end, we can truly say we loved life and breathed life into others.

LOVE LIFE, BREATHE LIFE: A LETTER TO AUNT GABBY

collage by Bianca Kipp

The doctor comes again bearing news—a chance at healing. A chance at retaking those lost opportunities. A chance at gratitude every second. A chance at bringing back our inner child. A chance to enjoy every day because each day is a miracle.

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Your turn: Write about a moment that felt like a dead end but turned into something new.

How did it change you?

Report from the Trenches, 1999-2000 submission by Natalie Reid

LETTERS

A year ago, my father died. Then my moribund marriage died, followed by a diagnosis of uterine cancer. After the hysterectomy came news of ovarian cancer and a malignant uterine polyp on the cervix. Chemotherapy and radiation loomed. Within three weeks, I met with two oncologists in Boston, found one in San Francisco, and fled there, leaving everything and everyone behind, including the friends in whose home I’d taken refuge from my husband’s rages.

I’m living in another friend’s house, a refugee from my former life. Words that once flowed now trickle, forcing me to rethink and rewrite, though chemo leaves me no energy to do either. Yet I push on—I, who never saw myself as strong, bear witness to my own endurance, to my belief that joy awaits me on the far side of this journey. Refugees must always believe in something, else we would lie down along the road and die. Despite the odds, I choose to believe in possibility.

But fear, after all, is only fear—and very much afraid of life. And we refugees love life with a power greater than any fear, even as we look over our shoulders and cower in trenches. We hit the road in spite of fear as much as from it, even when old certainties die and none lie ahead.

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I am hardly free of fear. Cancer burns out illusions of certainty. A recurrence can never be ruled out. What I fear most is this: what if I don’t meet the challenge of this cancer— if I cling to fear-based living because I cannot make that final leap to joy?

Three days before I started chemo, the new man in my life disappeared. Now a refugee even from love, on my good days I am grateful for his defection, because it forced me to walk into treatment stripped of all illusions. On my bad days, I sit in my room and face my shadow: the Natalie who judges and criticizes others, who tells herself she’s strong but keeps choosing weak men. He wrote to me, that man, speaking of love and asking for my patience. But I am no longer a woman who tries to mother men out of their weaknesses. I can only tell him, in the silence of my heart, “Yes, I believe you love me, however you understand love—but what does that have to do with me?”

Welcome to my trench, the fertile soil of a refugee headed toward rebirth. With uncertainty and trembling, I turn my back on perfection and my face to compassion. Will is my new endometrium, and hope is what sustains me. I lie in the fetal position, waiting for a cease-fire to signal me that it’s safe to climb out and hit the road again.

REPORT FROM THE TRENCHES, 1999-2000

collage by Bianca Kipp

artwork by Annette Wüllner

We refugees rarely get to choose what we take with us or what we leave behind. But even when we do, we still have to travel light.

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STORIES

Unchained submission by Valerie Gibbons

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“Of course,” I said. As a volunteer, I was always eager to relate to the rare someone like me.

We met and instantly recognized each other as compatriots in the land of “This-Must-Be-Hell.” We sat at a large round table with hard-back chairs, trying to get comfortable while others walked back and forth engaged in small conversations. We raced through the pleasantries, introductions, and family information. She looked anxious and eager to talk.

“So, tell me what’s going on, Sheri,” I said.

had endured: insidious infections, white blood cell counts in the hundreds of thousands, a port in her chest to glean and recycle “bad” blood, chemotherapies, low immunoglobulin levels, hospitalizations, temporary paralysis, wheelchairs, job loss, monthly drug copays of $3,000, indifferent health insurance companies, and finally denials for social security disability and unemployment compensation.

These trials had gone on for ten years, and she was only 34.

The slow roll of her story welled into a wave as she described her terrible journey. After one long exhalation, she capsized onto the table, sobbing heavily into her folded arms. I lay my hand on her shoulder.

We sat in silence for a few moments, She started talking slow and low. each of us painfully cognizant of I thought she might be trying to our vulnerability in the face of keep her emotions under control. aggressive blood cancers.

With each unfolding detail, her voice strained to describe what she

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She raised her head and sallied forth a smile. “Oh, well, it could be

UNCHAINED

artwork by Brenda Ciardiello

Someone at the cancer resource center told me about her. “She has leukemia and needs a transplant.

Will you talk to her?”

worse, right?” she bravely mused, wiping away tears.

lymphocytic leukemia, currently being treated with the wonder drug Gleevec.

I knew she liked to joke around. Her friends at the center had told me they giggled and joked during exercise class— even getting a little bawdy at times—to briefly forget their serious health situations. I took a chance at using ribald humor to respond to her brave front.

“A rare and complicated form,” she explained. “Gleevec didn’t work for me.

The doctors are willing to try a transplant.”

She searched my face. “I want to know whether I should do it.”

I hesitated to respond. The flashbacks “Aw, horseshit,” I drawled, “…as poured in, so I looked down and blinked my grandfather, the country vet, would say.” back the memories.

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“Really?” she asked, beaming me a crooked smile.

“Yep! And speaking of horses, he was a cow doctor but would never touch a horse’s ass. Said it was too dangerous.”

We laughed, and I told her she deserved to cry more than anyone I knew. As we gathered ourselves, her voice steadied, and she asked, “When was your transplant?”

“Six years ago,” I said. “Acute Myeloid Leukemia, Lurie Cancer Center, Chicago.” Like veterans sharing service time, rank, and battlefield, cancer survivors often share year, diagnosis, and treatment center.

“What about you?” I asked.

“CLL,” she stated. The acronym slid off her tongue like a well-oiled spoke in the medical machine. I knew it: chronic

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Finally, I offered this: “I had a hard road,” not daring to say more. She prodded for details, wanting to know if it was the right thing to do.

I struggled to explain stem cell transplant versus bone marrow transplant in the simplest terms. I briefly referred to graft versus host disease (GVHD for short), the systemic disorder that occurs when the donor’s immune cells recognize the recipient’s cells as foreign and attack the body.

I stopped short of my usual football analogy depicting GVHD as a skirmish between my body and the donor’s cells, mounting brutal attacks on the playing field of my mucus membranes. But in my mind, I reviewed them. My tear and oil glands so damaged, my eyes burned red; my saliva so dried up, my teeth fell out; my lungs so shriveled, I worked to breathe; my girl parts so scarred, they atrophied; my hair

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follicles so outraged, they up and died. I halted the mental landslide, not wishing to take either of us under.

“You’re just a regular Jezebel, huh?” I said, sick of morality judges. I’d been hit with that stone more than once.

A strained pause followed. She shared that her boyfriend’s mother had told her she was living in sin with her son. I took another shot at sardonic humor.

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“You’ll hear enough about it if you “Well, so am I!” I offered. get the transplant,” I said simply, offering a “Why, my mother once told me I was smile without feeling the least bit jolly. responsible for the near demise of the Queen of Heaven! ‘You’re hurting the Sheri appeared lost in thought and Virgin Mary,’ she had said, when once I perplexed by the medical speak. “Will it came home late from a date at age 16.” work?” she asked.

We shook our heads and laughed some “Everyone is different,” I said. more, then yawned and stretched to “Some people are back to work in less release the stiffness of sitting in plastic than a year, and others like me never get chairs for an hour. back to work.”

As we stood to go our separate ways, I She fidgeted, and I moved toward frankness. touched her elbow. “Listen, if you get the transplant, call me. I will tell you “Let me be honest because more. I’ll help you.”

I think you want me to. Would I go through it again? No. Given what it was The resource center was closing soon. I like for me, if the leukemia ever came scribbled my email address and phone back, I would not fight it again.” number on a piece of paper. We parted with a hug.

She looked at me with a fire in her eyes that I recognized as hope.

On the way to the car, my thoughts played leapfrog over what I had said “Sheri, I think you’re asking and what she had said. I started to the wrong question,” I offered gently. worry. Had I helped her or made her afraid?

“The question to ask is, ‘Do I want this Had I given her enough information? Would chance at life?’” she be all right?

I pulled the seatbelt across my chest and started the car. I looked around the parking lot hoping to catch a glimpse of her walking to her car, but she was

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nowhere in sight. I drove away with a me a feeling of comfort, so I sat weak heaviness descending on my heart— in grief for several minutes. heavy with the unresolved grief of my own struggle and sadness for hers.

Suddenly, an ethereal yet clear tinkling sound entered the room. I lifted I thought about Sheri all the way my head from the table and traced home. By the time I pulled into the its movement with my eyes. It started driveway, I had convinced myself to in the right corner of the ceiling and think positively. After all, hope springs slowly traveled to the left corner. As eternal, they say. I assured myself she suddenly as it had come, it was gone. would survive.

The sound lasted fewer than 10 seconds. My brows furrowed as I strained Epilogue to name what I had heard. Were those bells? No. Chimes? No. Rattles? No, heavier.

A few weeks after our meeting, Sheri’s I thought longer. Chains? My eyes opened friends at the cancer resource center said wide with recognition. That’s it! The she was very sick. She did not receive a sound of loose chains! life-saving transplant due to lack of a suitable donor.* We kept a daily vigil My heart threw me to my feet. I knew with each other by phone and Facebook. Sheri had passed through. I spoke to When the worst news came, that she the ceiling. was dying, I sent flowers to her house with my phone number on the card.

“Thank you for stopping by to see me, Sheri! There’s no more pain, A few hours later, her boyfriend called is there? Your chains have fallen off, and said, “Sheri is gone. It was a few right? You’re telling me you’re okay minutes ago.” now! You’re free! See you on the other side one day, dear Sheri.”

I muttered my condolences and hung up. My head dropped into my folded I was smiling. Never could I have imagarms, and I sobbed on the kitchen ined it. Indeed, hope had sprung eternal. table, like she had done with me at the center weeks earlier. When my sobs ran *Go to Be the Match (bethematch.org) out, emotional exhaustion overtook, to donate life-saving marrow or blood leaving me limp. The numbness gave stem cells.

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STORIES

Beauty in Our Brevity A Memoir

As it approached midnight on Christmas dust myself off and take chase in my dress Eve in 1984, Rob and I walk into the shoes through the frozen night. I am both cavernous, dimly lit St. Luke’s church shocked and laughing as I slip and slide to attend the biggest service of the year, down the street. I am equal parts amused midnight Mass. At the edge of our pew, at my brother’s trickery and annoyed at we genuflect, slide in and kneel for a my own naiveté. I should have expected quick prayer. Afterwards, we sit back and it. It is a moment of sibling goofiness take our seats on the hard wooden pew. carried into adulthood; grown men being A few minutes later, the huge pipe organ boys on Christmas Eve. fires up the first notes of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” Together with the rest of the ― congregation, we stand for the incoming processional as the organ music builds It is 2011, and I am speeding westward melodically. Even Rob, who was born in my Santa Fe SUV with Arcade Fire’s hard of hearing and wears hearing aids, Suburbs album on the CD player. It is a perks up during the loud, celebratory great album that laments the banality of tune. Tapered candles, white linen, and life in the suburbs. It is also a CD I will velvety red poinsettias sit atop the altar. soon grow to hate. In fact, in two days I The whole scene is powerful and reminds will despise it and, more often, when a song me of the true meaning of Christmas. from it comes on my iPod, I will advance Later, the priest lights incense and shakes past it because of all it stands for. the metal thurible back and forth, filling the church with aromatic smoke.

I’m on my way to visit Rob at the Mayo Clinic. He has been admitted for his After the service, Rob and I head out first chemotherapy treatment, and I am into the cold darkness for the short walk anxious to see him. I am going partly to home. Our breath hangs in the air as we show my support and encouragement, talk about the beauty of the service. Then, but there’s a bigger reason. I just want to when I least expect it, Rob hockey-checks see him, to spend time with him. Time me into the snowbank, where I land hands- is short. Time is precious. Time is all we in-pockets, in a heap. have left together.

He runs away laughing and shouting, I check the cruise and turn up the heat. It is “Merry Christmas, Jim!” while I am left to a cold, January morning, and by the grace

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BEAUTY IN OUR BREVITY

artwork by Andrea Calisi

ISSUE 3

submission by James Landwehr

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of God, the roads are clear and traffic is light on this Saturday. As I drive and listen to the music, I have nothing but time to think and pray. I do a little of the first and a lot of the second during my three hour ride. Memories of times we’ve had together stream my consciousness throughout the ride. The majority are centered around our college and bachelor years. During those years, we grew much closer as siblings. After that, we both married and started our families and are now at the point in our lives where the fruits of our labors are at their zenith. We both have successful careers, happy marriages, and two really good kids each. He is only fortyseven years old, much too young to have a condition like this. His future is uncertain, and it’s killing me.

the duties of fatherhood to try and catch some fish. Tonight the fishing is slow but the laughs abundant. We sip our beers and take turns dialing up stories from our past.

We talk about our college days, about life growing up, and, more recently, our joys and struggles with fatherhood.

“Yeah, it seems like all I do on those nights when Donna is working is change crappy diapers,” I say, as I rear back and cast my line.

“I hear that. It’s pretty nasty. Put it this way. I don’t lick my fingers when I’m eating food anymore. That’s how bad it is,” Rob said.

Laughter overtakes me, and I cannot stop.

My condition infects Rob, and he starts laughing at his own wittiness. For a few brief moments, we are both transported away from our current stresses and struggles into a place of levity and connection. It is a holy moment of connection as we sip our beers in our floating confessional.

Tears well up in my eyes. The road blurs and becomes indistinct, like I’m looking through stipple-patterned glass. Without warning, my chest begins to heave as my body gives way to the quake of sobs and a torrent of tears. What is happening to me?

I never used to cry like this. I’ve always been an emotional flat-liner, a real dyed- ― in-the-wool stoic. This kind of emotional gut punch is entirely foreign to me.

I arrive in Rochester shortly after noon.

St. Mary’s Hospital, where Rob is ― admitted, is a huge behemoth constructed of poured concrete and red brick. I find The water is calm, glassy and reflective. It his room number and take an elevator is a warm summer evening in July 2000. to the fifth floor. As I walk toward his Rob and I cast our lures in different room, I am overwhelmed with the weight directions near the shoreline as we talk of suffering by the other patients that quietly in the boat. Our wives have given share his floor. I can’t help but think the us a two hour window and reprieve from outcome for probably eighty percent of

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the people here is likely grim. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. In any case, the whole experience is eye opening.

I enter Rob’s room, and he is sitting upright in his bed, checking his Blackberry. He looks up, sees me, smiles, and says, “Hey, bro!”

“Hey, bro,” I reply.

After I settle in, we talk for an hour about the intricacies of his treatment and the unfortunate side effects of the chemotherapy. To add to his difficulties, the pressure of the tumors on Rob’s spinal column have paralyzed him from the waist down. As much as I dream and pray for a miracle that he might someday Rob is propped upright in a mechanical walk again, all signs indicate differently. bed with a chemotherapy IV stuck in his We talk for a bit about his “lasts.” The arm. “It’s really good to see you, man,” I last time he went golfing. The last time he say. I walk over to his bed, grasp his right played softball. His last swim. The whole hand, and give him an awkward man- talk is sobering and stark. At the same hug. He looks good despite his weight time, I was glad I had come. loss he’s experienced since his back surgery in June. It is clear he’s happy to ― have familiar company.

It is the middle of August 2011, and my Rob had a rare cancerous tumor removed wife, kids, and I drive to Rob and Jane’s from his spine seven months ago. When house in the Twin Cities to help stain their he went in for his six-month checkup in backyard fence. As was the custom, we stay December, the oncologist found the can- as guests in their house for the weekend. cer had spread to his lungs. The doctors The Saturday night is warm, and I am out said this type of cancer—Chondrosarco- in the sunporch with Rob while our wives ma—doesn’t typically respond to chemo- chat outside by the fire pit.

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This is a recent term we’ve both taken to with increased regularity since his diagnosis. In fact, all of us siblings have been calling each other bro, brother, sis, and sister a whole lot lately. His illness is reshaping our relationships with each other in subtle ways, all of them good.

Each of us is dealing with his prognosis in a different way. Despair, denial, anger, but the most prevalent seems to be, overwhelming grief.

therapy. Knowing it was his only hope at recovery, Rob agreed to two rounds of treatment here at the Mayo Clinic, one in January and another in February. The treatment he is receiving during my stay is a long shot; a medical roll of the dice. I try and keep optimistic and hope his case proves to be a statistical anomaly, but the feeling in my gut is not at all reassuring.

Part of me can’t shake the feeling that they’re prescribing it to him just to get another statistical number into their clinical study database.

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Rob’s chemo treatments months earlier had no effect on shrinking the tumors. Since then, Rob lived at home where, over the course of the summer, his condition declined significantly.

Coughing fits were increasing in intensity, and he’d lost a lot of weight and muscle mass. Our discussion shifts to his decision to move into a hospice care facility in the coming week.

“Love you, brother. Take care now.”

“Love you too, bro,” he replied.

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I notice that the hug lasts a couple seconds longer and was just a hint tighter than our typical hugs.

My wife and kids take their turns next. As we walk out, he signs “I love you” in sign language.

We carry our sadness out of his house and on the “Don’t you think it’s too early for that, Rob?” road back home, 300 miles away.

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“Jane and I have talked about this at ― length, Jim. It’s time. I want to relieve her of the stress of having me around,” he says.

The first five rows of the Methodist church are filled with immediate family and a few close “But wouldn’t you rather be at home? friends. The minister closes out the service with It’s a better environment, a better quality of a blessing. As he readies to leave the sanctuary, life, isn’t it?” the enormous pipe organ revs up Widor’s “Toccata” from Symphony V. The piece begins “Jim, this is no kind of life to live! I with a carousel-like melodic lightness. The notes sit in that bedroom for most of the day and twinkle and flutter around us like starlight and watch TV or read. Most days I am bored to fill the space with chaotic joy. death. There is no quality of life here. I’d never thought I’d say something like this, but I’m In my grief, I am comforted by the impact the ready to go. At least with hospice, they’ll keep music has on my soul. As our family exchanges me comfortable. I’m ready.” hugs, the colorful notes celebrate the life of my brother. Right now, it tells his story better His voice has a serious tone that makes his than words can. The sadness of the moment position crystal clear. I suddenly realize that is overtaken by the brilliant uplifting notes staying at home is what I want for him, not what coming from this marvelous instrument and he wants for himself. this wonderful composition. The music rises from the floor of the sanctuary upward to The following morning, my family packs our bags the ceiling, and I immediately visualize Rob’s and get ready to depart. We file into Rob’s room spirit rising with it. Through my tears, I can to say our goodbyes. There is a nagging feeling almost see his spirit dancing on the notes in the pit of my stomach that this will be the last above us near the ceiling of the church. On time I see him. I walk up to his bed, grab his hand, the saddest day of my life, I am filled with and give him another awkward man-hug. momentary joy and hope.

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Listening submission by Tina Bethea Ray

collage by Bianca Kipp

LISTENING

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artwork by Andrea Calisi

Caregivers adjust like a leather belt that needs to be let out or taken in we take notes like residents at the side of an attending listening, learning, documenting decisions, treatments, an eventual miracle we dive in the deepest end of the pool when we get the news that a loved one has cancer tread water, and in due course carry their bodies, like lifeguards to the shallow end to safety there where I helped my husband walk the steps upward to remission there, by the sunlight of a healed body we see that tomorrow isn’t a nightmare it’s a place where we bask in the light of hope of triumph we celebrate new birthdays and anniversaries listening for the sound that joy makes we celebrate with zeal zest zooming into the rest of our learned and lucid lives.

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ART

Ire-Akari

submission by Olamide Balogun

in the artist’s own words...

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Ire-Akari explores the topic of grief in relation to cancer. It is a graphical representation of what I believe people go through when they find out about their cancer and how they can cope with it.

The work draws inspiration from the art of the Catholic Church. These windows represent denial and bargaining, what people go through during their battle with cancer, and then communication and empathy, what I believe people should turn to in times like this for healing. Below lies acceptance, a place where one has found peace and is willing to grow. In the center of it all are three people that represent a community, emphasizing how a community is so important when one is going through pain. The writing “Ire-Akari” at the bottom is the name of my grandfather’s hospital, a place that represents most of the grief I have ever experienced in my life. That is where I draw all my inspiration in creating this work. Everyone I know who has gone through cancer, like my aunt, has shown me the importance of community, communication, and empathy. I believe these qualities would have been essential for her. They give a whole new will to fight cancer.

I sincerely hope my work helps people process any emotion they might feel and gives them a sense of how to navigate the road they might be on at the time. Cheers to being healthy and prioritizing mental health!

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Lit Up Skies submission by Cooper Harrison Reiki Practitioner

Dearest Gentle Reader,

I am a cancer survivor, but I am also many other things. I’m a retired collegiate athlete, three-time published author, reiki master, transcendence healer, artist, and musician. My greatest strength is my unwavering courage, coupled with wild optimism. I never take life for granted. Not a single year, month, week, day, hour, minute, or second goes by without some gratitude. This mindset, born in the crucible of my cancer experience, has become the cornerstone of my existence.

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I write to you not to tell a sad story of pain and suffering but to remind you how beautiful life is when given the simple things. My name is Cooper, but real ones call me “Coop.” Some know me as “Conscious Coop” on TikTok and Instagram. I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia on June 30, 2004—a beautiful summer day in St. Louis. I was just seven years old, standing at the threshold of a journey that would shape my entire life.

artwork by Brenda Ciardiello

Let’s talk about some cherished moments from my month-long hospital stay.

Some might see it as “being stuck” inside, but not me. I took many walks with a blue Powerade outside—perhaps the kid’s version of “cracking open a cold one.” These walks were in a little rooftop garden, an oasis from the metal and tile of the hospital room. For a rooftop garden, they really had everything—all the flowers and plants you could imagine. Someone was always working there, tending to the greenery, adding a touch of life to the sterile hospital environment.

These garden walks allowed me precious time with my mother. It was a chance to escape the confines of the room, to breathe fresh air, and to ask questions about my new diagnosis and the life that lay ahead. We’d stroll among the

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blooms, the scent of flowers mingling with the antiseptic hospital smell that clung to our clothes. Not Instagrammable moments, perhaps, but ones I mentally saved, snapshots of peace in a turbulent time.

A week after my admission, we celebrated Independence Day. You might think my holiday was ruined without pools, popsicles, hot dogs, and fireworks, but you’d be wrong. From eleven stories up, I had a view stretching over Forest Park and all of St. Louis.

I watched five firework shows simultaneously—an iPad kid’s dream come true. Explosions of red, blue, gold, and green painted the sky, each burst a celebration of life and resilience. This new perspective taught me that sometimes, being “imprisoned” at the top gives you better views than those sitting free at the bottom. As in life, there are levels to this.

the Chemo King had bacon with eggs and a donut. Lunch was usually a sandwich with vegetables, while dinner always included a protein with a side of fries.

The fries were bland, but my creative side kicked in. I thought, “How can I make this mediocrity a masterpiece?”

The answer: ADD THE VELVEETA! Think poor man’s Shake Shack fries.

It was a delicious enhancer to my dying taste buds—anything to keep the weight up. My creative genius led to a five-star menu three times a day in a hospital. For those who say Panera Bread tastes like “hospital food,” I took offense. They clearly never tried my cheese fries.

The best part about being in the hospital was that people came to see me. I had visits from family, friends, teammates, priests, service dogs, and even a few celebrities. Cardinals Now, about the hospital food—it was legend Mike Matheny came to my surprisingly good. Every kid’s dream room with a signed glove (though is to eat donuts every day, and when he did scratch off the Pirates logo I tell you I did that, I mean it. I got a and wrote a nice Bible verse for me). menu for my three meals: an entrée, I still have that glove to this day, a one side, and a dessert item. Yes, tangible reminder of the kindness I even for breakfast. Every morning, encountered. I also received cool gifts

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like a Game Boy (remember those?) and a trip to Disney World. I was getting loads of attention as a middle child and free gifts. It was the least the Universe could give me, considering the needles and medications pumping through my veins.

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inward. I perfected my craft of writing in that solitude. That’s what started my love for the arts and beautiful poetry.

This experience shaped my future pursuits in ways I couldn’t have imagined. My time in the hospital sparked my interest in healing, leading Don’t get me wrong—cancer was the me to become a reiki master and hardest challenge of my life. I never transcendence healer. My love for negated that triumph over one of the writing blossomed into becoming worst bodily diseases. But I’ve told this a published author, allowing me to story too often from a sad viewpoint. share my story and inspire others.

This version is meant to show the The resilience I developed translated good in life. Cancer is a deadly disease, into my athletic career, pushing me to but one can make it through with excel despite the odds. the best doctors, a magical amount of optimism, and the right people Life doesn’t end when the diagnosis around the hospital bed. happens; it just begins. More life waited for me, and I took that beast My mother, one of the strongest by the horns. Coop was here and is people I know, along with my dad, currently still going, living each day brother, sister, and extended family, with the intensity and appreciation ensured I never felt alone. Their born from those hospital days. All unwavering support was like a warm glory to the Universe for keeping me blanket, comforting me through the here, for allowing me to transform toughest nights and celebrating every a potentially tragic story into one of small victory. I knew I was going to hope and perseverance. make it. I knew that I wasn’t going to give up on them or on life with them. In the end, this is not a tale of sorrow but one of joy found in unexpected It was during this time that I became places. It’s a reminder that even in our one of the most creative people. With darkest days, light can be found. It can no sports, limited outside time, and be found in a rooftop garden, a plate only so much television a kid could of cheesy fries, and watching fireworks watch before going insane, I turned from a different perspective.

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Your turn: When was a time you found happiness in the last place you thought you would?

How did it reshape your outlook?

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I Surrender submission by Jessica Mustafa

STORIES

to the left of my racing heart. I bowed my head towards it, as if to acknowledge its presence, its pain, in a subservient kind of way. The tears began their well-worn path to the corners of my eyes, but I didn’t feel like crying again. So instead, I focused on my body, my amazing body, with the capability to both harm and heal itself, and that day, I chose healing. I envisioned, as I inhaled, my breath as a soft, white light traveling from the edge of my nostrils, down the back of my throat, to the areas in my breast under scrutiny. I saw in my mind’s eye, as I exhaled, the cancerous cells disappearing. Hope is light, and I was illuminated from within.

But eventually, the light flickered, and my positive outlook faded with it. As hard as I tried and as long as I sat, I just couldn’t let go of the anxiety that had burrowed under my skin, twisted my muscles into knots, and wrestled my stomach into the deepest, darkest pit of despair. It was becoming clear that my mind, like my body, also had the potential for harm.

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The room was quiet when I entered, the hardwood floor cold beneath my bare feet. I lowered to a seat on my meditation pillow, tucking my left foot under my right thigh and my right foot under my left thigh. Cross-legged, I shifted my weight until I was sitting up tall, my spine straight. The subtle scent of rose and vanilla escaped the flame of the burning candle and took refuge in my awareness.

Across from me, floor-to-ceiling windows showcased an early December sky, dull and gray with no promise of snow. Instead of closing my eyes and drawing my senses inward, I sat and stared outside, feeling as bleak as it looked. I am a yoga teacher, skilled at mindfulness techniques, but that day, my mind felt full of all the wrong things, and I couldn’t seem to settle into any meditative practice. Thoughts of my upcoming bilateral mastectomy battled worries about surgery and who would pack my children’s school lunches when I couldn’t, each vying for center stage at the forefront of my consciousness until the BIG thought entered, stage left.

CANCER.

artwork by Annette Wüllner

Later on, at my pre-op appointment, I had a panic attack. The sterile walls of Yes, all eyes on her. the hospital room suddenly felt too close to me as I sat on the exam table. I ran my The dreadful mantra, “I am forty years old palms up and down my thighs in a feeand have breast cancer,” rang in my ears, ble attempt to stop the sweating. I menso I deepened my breath to drown it out. tally willed myself to stay calm, scolded I placed my hands over my chest, one on my ragged breath for not listening. The top of the other, letting them rest upon the blood pressure cuff had already proven very place where my cancer called home, my body traitorous, and I was certain the

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physician assistant sitting across the room “You have cancer, and your mind is trying could hear my pounding heart. to protect you. You have real fear, for a real reason, and it’s ok to be scared.”

“You can do this,” I told myself.

“You know how to focus. Just breathe.”

I collapsed into the cushion below me as if a huge weight had been lifted, as if I “I see you’re a yoga teacher,” she could finally give myself permission to said, flipping through my chart. “Well, believe that yes, this was bigger than me. that doesn’t seem to be helping you right Cancer was bigger, and I couldn’t face it now,” she chuckled, in a futile attempt at alone. a joke. Instead of laughing, I cried.

“Do you know that old poem, That evening, I called my yoga teacher, ‘Footprints?’” she asked. paced the floor of my meditation room, now dark, and lamented to her about Of course, I did! It was a poem I had my fear. Shoulders slouched in defeat, I turned to for comfort many times while told her that I just couldn’t seem to get a growing up. “The one about the man grip on my anxiety. No amount of med- walking the beach with the Lord, who itation was able to calm my galloping discovers that at the lowest times in his heart at doctor’s appointments or keep life, there’s only one set of footprints in my deep-seated feeling of doom at bay. I the sand.” was embarrassed to admit to my trusted mentor that all my years of training had In fact, that same poem, printed on a tiny, failed me when I needed it most. I was laminated card was displayed at the edge a tossing buoy on rocky waves at best, a of my bathroom mirror and had been sinking ship at worst. stuck there for almost ten years! I couldn’t, however, remember the last time I read it.

“What exactly are you doing in your meditation?” she asked.

“How about you surrender,” she suggested softly. “Ask for support and “Well, I place my hands over my strength from something greater than cancer, and I envision my body healing yourself.” itself,” I answered, even if the answer seemed a little woo-woo when hearing it And so, the next day I sat again, crosssaid aloud. legged on my pillow. This time I placed the backs of my hands on my knees, open “You cannot make your anxiety palms ready to receive. I connected my go away by meditating,” she gently said. meandering mind to my breath until it

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was steady, holding me in place like an anchor at sea. I closed my eyes and saw myself on a beautiful beach: white sand underfoot, the rays of the rising sun split through the clouds and cast the sky a pale pink. I was heading towards the sun. The soles of my feet felt warm as they sank amid the ever-shifting grains of sand, and I wondered how many billions of rocks had weathered their way to soften the beach I walked.

The sand became deeper, our feet struggled to keep the pace, and what first felt leisurely began to feel arduous. Like a relay, they handed me off to my husband who scooped me up in his strong embrace and threw me over his shoulder as I cackled in surprise. The many footprints in the sand merged into just a single set, one foot steadily in front of the other, as he carried me. There was laughter and tears and embracing as he passed me to my daughter; then she passed me to her brothers. To my parents and in-laws. My sister-in-law, no stranger to doctors and hospitals herself, did her best to keep me lifted until my brother-in-law took over.

Family and friends from afar and those who visited me weekly, who gifted me cardigans and homemade granola and hugs.

My neighbor who sat with me when I received my dreaded diagnosis, who had rubbed my back as I wept and said, “Why Then suddenly, I realized who I need- not me? Not you. Not now.” They all took ed on that beach in my mind. I saw my their turns. My teacher made an appear-

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I tried to envision the Lord walking beside me, just like in the poem, but I stopped dead in my tracks with the realization that I wasn’t quite sure how to picture him. I grew up in a Catholic family, birthed by a mother who had left the convent to marry my leather coat-wearing, motorcycle-riding father, so Jesus and I had been acquainted at a young age. But as an adult, throughout many years of traveling to places like Pakistan (where my husband was born) and India (where my love of meditation was born), Jesus started to seem like a man I no longer knew. In my meditation, He was a lovely walking companion, but I began to think that maybe I should picture God instead. I tried to conjure up an image of the Infinite, but doing so left me breathless and unable to move. The almighty, universal power is neither he nor she and far too vast to put into any physical form that may have been strolling alongside me.

grandmothers. Cancer had stolen them both from me when I was just a child.

They were next to me now, arms intertwined with mine. After a few steps, they smiled goodbye and placed my hands into those of my aunts, who also had lost their lives to cancer. I started to see all those gone before me that I had loved dearly throughout my life: my grandpa and step-grandma, my husband’s younger cousin who used to make me laugh. Here they were on this beach in the sunshine, and I was not alone!

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ance, as well as my own beloved yoga stu- bathroom sink and attempted to make dents. Together, they carried me. my hands as busy as my head. I put away my makeup, turned, and reached for the Finally, in the graceful and steadfast lotion when I heard a quiet click behind presence of my surgeons, I grew tired. It me—the sound of something little and seemed we had traversed for miles down laminated hitting the granite countertop. the beach and the sun had risen high I looked over my shoulder and stared in in the sky. I looked behind me and saw awe at the card that had never before all who had gathered, and I knew then fallen from its crevice between the wall what I was surrendering to. It was not a and mirror. It laid before me now, face submissive, defeated kind of surrender up. The poetic words of “Footprints” in where I was left powerless to my cancer all their tiny-printed glory begged me to captor, but rather one in which I gave read them again. myself over willingly, consciously to a greater collective of love. I offered all my As the sun dropped behind the horizon fear, perseverations, and doubt, watched that afternoon, I sat once again on my it all slip through my fingers like the sand pillow, cross-legged on the floor, a knitbetween my toes until each speck no lon- ted blanket draped across my back. This ger resided in my hands. Yes, the Infinite time, I placed one hand over my heart, would take over from here. wrapped my other arm around my waist, and slowly inhaled, breathing into every — corner of my body, settling deeper into myself with each exhale. My mind, like a Four months passed, and one morning quiet beach at sunset, began to still until I found myself thinking about my up- a memory lapped gently upon the shore coming reconstructive surgery. I caught of my consciousness. I reflected on the a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I saw moment earlier in my bathroom, on that the newly inked tattoo of Sanskrit script serendipitous reminder that yes, this was along my left side, just under my arm- bigger than me. Love was bigger, and love pit, where deep inside an excavation of could heal. Love swelled within me and lymph nodes had taken place. My tat- in those around me, and when coalesced, too reflected back to me its meaning of it became larger than, yes, even cancer. surrender: to something greater, beyond And if I could surrender to that, I’d never one’s individual ego. walk alone, never have to ask at the end of my life why there was only one set of The cancer was gone, but she left the footprints in the sand because I would aldoor ajar on her way out. My anxiety had ready know that I had been carried…by slipped back in. I occupied myself at my more people than I could ever count.

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The Write Treatment submission by Emily Rubin, Founder, Author, Instructor

We are all connected to one another and to the mystery at the heart of the universe through our strange and marvelous ability to create words. When we write, we create, and when we offer our creation to one another, we close the wound of loneliness and may participate in healing a broken world.

Pat Schneider, Writing Alone and With Others

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I founded the Write Treatment Workshops in 2011 at Mount Sinai Cancer Centers in New York City for anyone affected by cancer, including patients, survivors, caregivers, and family members. The weekly creative writing workshops are a time to gather and process the sideswipe of cancer by writing with a group. After running the programs in New York City for twelve years, I recently started an additional program for the New York Oncology and Hematology Community Foundation in upstate New York. I have discovered that writing as a community brought together by illness can offer solace, guidance, and camaraderie while engaging in the rigorous, sustainable, and joyful creative process of writing.

In 2008, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through two years of treatment including surgeries, chemo, and radiation. During treatment, I kept a diary, but put much of my writing, including a novel, on hold. When I was finished with treatment, I resumed my daily writing practice and went back to completing the novel. I had several short stories and essays published before my cancer diagnosis. A year after I resumed writing regularly, my debut novel, Stalina, the story of a Russian immigrant who comes to the US after the fall of the Soviet Union, was selected in the Amazon Debut Novel Award Contest. The prize of a publishing contract felt like a gift from the universe for all the labor and hard times, and I could leave the life with cancer behind and concentrate on writing.

While dutifully engaged in promoting the novel, I noticed a lump in my left breast. Tests for a possible relapse were ordered, thankfully, the lump was benign, but the dread and anxiety came along with the realization that the illness would always be a part of my psyche and my life. With my novel out in the world, I

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approached the Mount Sinai Hospital social work team with the idea of giving back to the community by starting the Write Treatment Workshops. They loved the idea and helped with promotion and a conference room in which to hold the workshops. I hoped that writing together would provide an unconventional way to process and heal.

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My weekly syllabus for the in-person workshops included writing prompts, quotes, and photographs to inspire the writing. I brought the prompts to the workshop, and we would all write together. I encouraged the participants to write about anything they chose and hoped the workshop would be a place to take time away from waiting rooms, procedures, and a distraction from the many side effects of chemo, surgery, and radiation.

Many of the participants came for the opportunity to take a much needed furlough from the illness and wrote about many things, including their cancer journeys. Sighs, squinting eyes, and furrowed brows were in evidence around the room as the wheels spun and pens glided glide across blank pages. Excited to share the results, we listened to narratives that spanned the literary landscape.

Cora, taking the prompt ’write about something that annoys you,’ wrote a piece called ’Miasma,’ about the anxiety of waiting to hear from her doctors and how watching a live video feed of a red tail hawk’s nest was a soulful distraction.

She wrote, “Then, ever so carefully, she folds up the talons on her feathered legs into balls and gently maneuvers her warm fluffy body over the sleeping chicks. A small miracle on Earth Day: the benevolence of love on two delicate balls of fluff. Perhaps a sign that the news I await will come with kindness and hope.”

Taking chances, making hard choices, being fierce and vulnerable, and embracing humor are all part of life with cancer, and, as we have discovered in the workshops, essential to writing. I have seen the Write Treatment Workshops grow from a gathering of people affected by cancer into a community of dedicated writers.

Whether memoir, fiction, or poetry, risk-taking is evident in the fierce, funny, touching, and sometimes risqué musings. That the writing is artful and cathartic is not surprising. Laughter,

tears, and prickling energy filled the room, and after two hours, we parted feeling enervated and inspired. This is the magic, delight, and benefit of writing in a group. The writers are as diverse as passengers on any NYC subway or bus—these are the voices of a community filled with empathy and words unencumbered. The stories and poems generated in the workshops are written by a people willing to experiment and explore in times of trouble the worlds within and without.

In 2017, The Write Treatment Anthology Volume 1 was published and was awarded as a winner of the Best Book Awards 2017 in the Health Category.

The Write Treatment Anthology Vol 2: The Pandemic Years was published in October 2023. The writings of forty writers are represented in the two anthologies. I also included an In Memoriam section in both anthologies to honor the writings of those we have sadly lost. They are with us in spirit and in their writings.

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With the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I moved the workshops to Zoom in April 2020. For these workshops, I started to send prompts prior to the workshops. This gave the participants the opportunity to think and write before we gathered. Meeting on this platform made it possible for people to join from around the country.

One writer joins us from Ireland. As cancer patients, whether enduring rounds of treatment, successfully surviving the illness, or in remission, we were all well-acquainted with the isolation and everyone welcomed the opportunity to gather safely and maskless. The workshops are also a place where someone can let us know if they are worried or just want

to share the next steps in treatment whether going in for surgery, scans, or checkups. Support with words of confidence and experience is shared along with the stories we write.

All proceeds from sales of the Write Treatment Anthologies Volumes 1 and 2 support the workshops. The Write Treatment Workshops have also received support from Poets & Writers Workshop and Readings Program, the Marissa Acocella/Bloomingdale’s Fund, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Heidi Paoli Fund, Amazon Literary Partnership, Barabara Fatt Costykian Fund of the NY Community Trust, the NY Oncology and Hematology Community Foundation, and many individuals.

Excerpts from the Write Treatment Anthology Volume 1

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It Was No Accident It Was an Accident

by Connie Perry It was no accident that it was an accident. A particularly timed collision of personalities needing to express themselves at a time of great need in their lives. A gathering of souls collected to write.

The connecting medical threads are for some, dramatic, heightened, immediate, and all have a measured focused battle toward being whole. Each person turning pain shards into word gems, wisdom from each individual champion, which they impart on the collective group.

His story is uplifting. Her story is amazing. We have all endured. He’ll rally, I hope. While, she might come undone.

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My experience is vastly different from the others, but the shared pen slash-and-bare-all determination connects us to this gathering of humanity.

We deliver the story of our health, a fiercely regarded commodity, in simple yet true prose.

We possess our story. We delve into the giant maw of the illness industry by laying down our ink-stained description of anxiety. Sometimes we channel our anger. Can we trust our experiences will be measured against the passing of time?

Some of us will bury our memories with this pen and paper.

We’ll slog through to the other side of medical jargon, jotting down impersonal confusing procedures. We’ll make glib mention of jokes here and there. Altered states of dark humor offered up for shock value.

Dare we compare notes? I can’t handle your distress. Our pens climb us to a rallying cry of: enough. We breathe along the margins. Being prompted to remember details means being delivered back to immediate and deep distractional fog.

Pen strokes to obliterate some fears.

Black and blue only from the ink flow now. Bruised flesh left be- hind as good health checkups flounce upon the steady march of time.

Deliver news. Reclamation of self, coming five pages in.

It is no accident that it was an accident that a writers group formed in a cancer ward.

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Victims of the Lightning (Victimes de la foudre)

by Alphonse Legros 1837–19111

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Lightning Bolts

by Caroline Marie Sun Lightning strikes once—a strange occurrence: shocking, surprising, out of the blue. We talk about it like it is rare and unique, but it happens all the time, all around the planet, thousands of times a day. And yet to see a bolt do it right in front of you, when you cannot predict it, cannot really imagine it, and then it just happens.

The closer it is, the more powerful and instantaneous the rumble that reverberates over you, through you, shaking the foundations of your chest and stomach. Blinding you with sight and deafening sound. But then it is gone. It moves on from where you are standing, or sitting, or staring, or looking. Another flash and rumble, further away, moving in another space and time, receding from you. Slowly it heads into the distance and then is seen and heard no more. But lightning can and does strike twice and sometimes more than even that.

LIGHT MAGAZINE

Now it is a different story. It is aiming at you; it will not let you go this time. It is waiting in the darkness undercover, waiting for the moment to strike again. This time it is aiming at your vitals.

You cannot see or hear it coming, but you feel it. You know something is not right, something is about to knock you down again. You hope, against hope, that this storm will pass over quickly, leaving nothing but distant echoes and shimmers of light behind. But we humans have harnessed the power of those bolts in CAT scans, MRIs, and PET scans. Now we train those powers on our fragile, moist, vulnerable selves, turn the beams on, and see what sparks fly. Another turn of the circle in the “doughnut-shaped” machines seals my fate. Lightning has struck me again—both where it hit before and also in a new location, shattering my lower spine with fracture, fatigue, and searing pain. Now I need the painkillers and steroids for real: to be able to sit, to bend and tie my shoe, to roll into and out of the bed, to try to wash my feet in the shower.

Lightning knows no mercy. She strikes with precision and ruthlessness. Her skill is almost surgical, and yet catastrophic in her dam- age. I am numb with this new onslaught—hating the universe for hitting me down again when I was just starting to feel that things were looking up, alternating with a sense of doom and a sense that there is nothing I can do as I am once again carried along, helplessly, on a sea of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

Where is my agency in all this? Where are my thunderbolts? Oh that I had a quiver full of them like the Greek god Zeus that I could grab and hurl at the demons that now beset me. I need Hephaestus to smith them out for me with his band of mighty Cyclops—electric blue-and-pink bolts to counteract and heal the damage that these new blasts have done to me. Oh Prometheus, bring them gently to me with a bow of gold that I might take sure and steady aim.

THE WRITE TREATMENT

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ISSUE 3

If Picasso Was My Plastic Surgeon

by Kristin Westbrook Missing pieces, torn apart.

Deconstructed.

A profile.

Plump, open lips.

One tooth overlaps the other.

Large tears spill down the left side of the face, Pouring out of green eyes.

Lashes burned away.

Heart flattened.

Body pulled apart.

Dissected.

Removed.

Cut up negative space.

Long crooked, blood red semi-circle line across the belly.

Navel new.

Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul Missing breast sculpted and reformed.

Scarred.

A thin circular line annotates the missing nipple like a proofreader’s mark.

The torso looks like a smile and a wink.

A deep dark hole left where she used to be.

A funked-up tattered construction paper collage, colors faded.

Pictured in black and white.

artwork by Bianca Kipp

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THE WRITE TREATMENT

STORIES

LIGHT MAGAZINE

Excerpts from The Write Treatment Anthology Volume 2: The Pandemic Years During the pandemic, in the spring of 2021, I found this loving and supportive group while they met on Zoom. It was difficult to meet people who understood the emotional challenges of cancer, so the group immediately became important to me. –Liz York To you, my cancer-laden brothers and sisters, I have a message. This is not a chore. In the thoughts and feelings on display, you expressed courage, anger, uncertainty, and more…

–Norman Ford, 1935-2021 …Yesterday I had a virtual visit with my GI oncologist who I have become quite fond of…I have come to appreciate his wonkiness, encyclopedic knowledge of all the ways we can slash and burn the cancer, as well as his absolutely exquisite taste in clothing…–Susan Masaad, MD 1938-2021

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Of Water & Earth

By Caroline Jameison

ISSUE 3

What does it take to throw a pot? I imagine the cold mound of clay on a wheel, a grey nothing lump until a foot pedals the wheel—to rotate, hands and water giving it shape as it spins. Now a smooth ball, hands help to shoot it up as it grows into an adolescent cylinder, emanating a fragrance of mud and rain.

Palms, fingers, and imagination gave birth to the bowls, water droppers, snuff bottles, and ginger jars I have surrounded myself with since childhood.

Breathing in deeply and taking a break from my work which today feels unconscious and mechanical, I gaze at a glossy jade water pitcher perched in front of me. Round as a bowling ball, with a handle and spout so unique they conjure both animal antlers and the machine age. Next to it sits a tall Korean celadon vase, stamped with a basket weave pattern. The two greens are cousins, one from a quiet tide pool in the Pacific, the other from the warm glow of the Caribbean Ocean, with the verdant temperature of a bathtub.

Through the window I see the courtyard. Emerald fishtail palms and [...]

artwork by Bianca Kipp

STORIES

Positive Eau De Parfum for COVID

By Judith Elaine Halek Just when you believe all is lost, venturing beyond the call of duty is bravery, a Positive Eau De Parfum for covid. Wild orange, and cinnamon in a base of fractionated coconut oil, invigorate senses with a warm, zesty aroma.

Become your superhero: bravery

LIGHT MAGAZINE

bravery sustains one through a nineteen-hour shift of providing disaster relief through EMT services and distributing food to homeless or first responders. If lockdowns got you down, splash on a fingertip of bravery and venture out for a walk. This warm citrus, floral, and the faintly spicy bouquet is formulated to manage feelings of occasional uneasiness or anxiety, replacing them with courage and confidence.

Every day, at some point, we go out on a limb, financially, physically, and mentally, through the pressures of tolerating covid’s new normal. Counterbalance your instabilities with high wire act. This lemongrass, laced in almond oil with a tad of calming lavender, eases stress and anxiety, thus lowering blood pressure. high wire act releases tethered feelings about no option to ever speak to a live rep again, standing in line ten city blocks long, distancing six feet apart, questions around no[...]

We see the brightness of a new page where anything yet can happen.

Rainer Maria Rilke

THE WRITE TREATMENT

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It Ends with Me submission by Mesoma Okeke

in the artist’s own words...

ISSUE 3

The advancements that enable prevention and early detection of cancers are often overlooked, especially in the environment where I live and interact with patients as a medical student.

Pap smears and vaccines are readily available, yet the burden of cervical cancer remains high. Breast, colon, and lung cancers cause significant morbidity and mortality due to a failure to recognize early signs and poor knowledge about these diseases.

This piece, titled “It Ends with Me,” focuses on cervical cancer, a preventable cancer affecting females of reproductive age. On the right, a woman battling cancer is shown receiving chemotherapy. Beside her, her daughter is depicted receiving a vaccine against cervical cancer. This vaccine, which can be administered to girls as young as nine years old, helps protect the body against strains of Human Papillomavirus (HPV), the leading cause of cervical cancer.

The woman’s transformation lies in the conviction that no one should suffer from cervical cancer. By ensuring her daughter is protected, she aids her own healing process and actively participates in health promotion.

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ART

IT ENDS WITH ME

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POETRY

Consciously Close submission by Leyelle M.G.

LIGHT MAGAZINE

It was one thing after another/ As the world fell out from under/ I couldn’t help but think/ You’re too young to be dying so quickly/ And yet/ You’re the bravest I’ve ever seen you/ Like the eye of a storm/ Perhaps you see something/ I can’t see/ Or feel it/ If you don’t know/ Consciously close/ Enough to touch heaven/ In no way does this make sense/ Though I’ve learned better than to scream at the cosmos/ I can’t reason/ That this hand heaven dealt you is fair/ Yet you bear it/ With such strength/ It rattles reason/ Where I anticipated collapse/Your soul blossoms/ Like a rose in the ruins of your body/

artwork by Andrea Calisi CONSCIOUSLY CLOSE

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Your turn: What artwork, letter, poem, or story from this magazine moved you? How will you carry that inspiration forward?

A NOTE FROM ALISON KRUSE

A Note from the Artist on the Cover and Her Work

ISSUE 3

Friends and family close to me have faced cancer, and I lost a friend to it a few years ago. That loss shook me, leaving me grappling with the deep unfairness of it all. Cancer is a subject that hits close to home, so I felt truly honored to contribute to this magazine issue.

Since my friend’s passing, candles have held a profound symbolism for me. During her time in hospice and even afterward, I found myself visiting churches to light a candle, despite not being religious. On her birthday or other significant days, I sometimes burn letters, imagining the smoke carrying my messages to her, wherever she may be. Candles bring me comfort and warmth, serving as literal and symbolic light in navigating grief. In moments of darkness, I remind myself that I can simply light a candle (cover and p. 123).

White roses are associated with cancer. In Toronto, we have an unusually long rose season. Even in November, I see single roses blooming from lawns scattered with dead leaves. They feel both lonely and resolute. There’s a quiet strength in these late bloomers—a determination to keep growing despite their isolation (p. 5 and 127).

-Alison Kruse

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artwork by Alison Kruse

When I thought of my family and friends during their battles with illness, doves came to mind. Doves represent peace and hope. Illness often brings chaos, but I wanted this work to focus on moments of calm—those fleeting instances when, despite everything, you notice a bird in a tree and remember there’s a vast, interconnected world beyond your own body (p. 124).

citations

artwork by Alison Kruse

Works Cited for “The Realm of Po (Night): A Moolelo (Story) of Spiritual Healing with Cancer” on page 61 1. Wilson-Hokowhitu, B., Brown, M. A., Meyer, M. A., ho’omanawanui, ku’ualoha, Aikau, H. K., Chang, D. A., Hall, L. K., Kahakalau, K., Nu’uhiwa, K., & Perkins, ’Umi. (2019). The past before us: Moʻokūʻauhau as methodology. University of Hawaii Press.

Works Cited for “Lightning Bolts” on page 110 1. Legros, A. (n.d.). Victims of the lightning (Victimes de la Foudre) [Etching and drypoint]. National Gallery of Art. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.8236.html

Alison Kruse Cover, p.5, 123, 124, 127 alisonskruse.com @a.s.kruse

Brenda Ciardiello p.48, 75, 78, 90, 92–93, 95 brendaciardiello.com @ brendaciardiello.art

Andrea Calisi p.66–68, 81, 85, 86, 118 @andreacalisi68

Dionte Walker p.16–21, 32–39, 56–59 @sir_goldwatch

Annette Wüllner p.54–55, 72, 98, 103 annettewuellner.de @annettewuellner

Laura Meggers p.15, 24–31, 42–43, 60, 65 laurameggers.com @circa613

Anji Woodley p.8, 11, 12, 47 @anjiwoodley Bianca Kipp p.112, 114, 115 biancakipp.com @landandarchitecture

artwork by Alison Kruse

artist credits