September In between labels

Writing Prompts: The Summer Day Mary Oliver

Winter’s Cloak Joyce Rupp

Both Sides Now Joni Mitchell

So, I joined the train too late and bypassed the ticket booth, the platform, ticket collection and sped full speed to my 1st class carriage, destination final, destruction being my unfortunate fate,

The end is my end, the vicious medicine contains it, prolongs it, it will not stop it, its terminal, its incurable, its advanced, racing through my veins, unstoppable, yet treatable.

My Cancer Train

Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?

Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

The Reaper, grimly, with his scythe has stalked me, casting shadows on my shoulder, is this since I’ve learnt the cancer resides in my body or has he always been there, whilst I’ve remained blissfully unaware that, “doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?”

The urge to ensure and experience the very best of me, I throw myself into each moment, immerse myself into plans and schemes, abandon myself to the now, rather than dwell in the uncertainty of my incurable cancer situation,

The urgency of my panicking mind, the what is, the what if’s, the what might’s, what has, what did, what didn’t, what could, what may, what was, I leave my mind rattling on, I’m exhausted with it,

As Autumn let’s go and releases, Her song begins, as the Oak sheds her golden leaves, that languidly spiral to the woodland floor, I behold the beauty in this moment’s dawn and casually tree like let everything else slip away.

Living, whilst Leaving, my perfect, wild and precious life, my beautiful self

What am I? (Jill)

A patient?

A Burden?

A person with cancer?

But I am also aMother

Wife

Friend

Sister Daughter

Colleague

Godmother

Employee

Supporter.

Cancer labels you but does not have to define you …..

‘One wild and precious life, I don’t really know life at all, but now friends are acting strange, they shake their head they say I’ve changed, well something’s lost but somethings gained in living every day’

My life how its changed

Difficult

Peers getting married

Having babies

Friends in managerial roles

Home benefits

More time

Less rushing around

I am picking the blackberries and sloes, planning for winter, Will I be doing this next year? They grow and ripen, I wait in anticipation for their arrival, All of a sudden they are here - too many too soon! I need to pick quickly, get the best before it’s too late. Have I got time? Just in time for Winter- have I done enough? Until next year - will it be me picking? Collecting? Making for my family? Will it be someone else? Or will they perish and waste……