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)
For permission requests, advertising inquiries, and other general inquiries, contact info@light4ph.org.
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
ISSUE 3
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
ISSUE 3
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
6
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
LIGHT MAGAZINE
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).
7
8
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.
LIGHT MAGAZINE
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
9
ISSUE 3
POETRY
10
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
11
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
LIGHT MAGAZINE
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
13