This post is adapted from a sermon I gave last summer for the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, where we are members. I was halfway through 15 rounds of chemo at the time, but had just had the miracle of a clean PET scan. From the start, our community there supported us in countless ways, practically, emotionally and spiritually. I wanted to share something of my experience with them; I wanted to give thanks. Now, I offer it to you:

I've always been fascinated with the way our minds work, especially when we are afraid. I have some experience with this. The monkey mind the Buddhists talk about runs wild: first imagining the worst possible event, then creating the worst possible interpretation of that event.

I am infamous for reading articles on obscure dangers like mountain lion attacks, or snow wells, and then sounding the the alarm bell for anyone and everyone who could be at risk.

So what does a worrier do when the universe says, I’ll give you something to REALLY worry about? 

In December of 2007, I found a lump under my arm. Our boys and I had a mean cold virus that didn’t want to let go, and I assumed it was related. But the virus finally went away, while the lump did not. On Christmas Eve day, I went in for an ultrasound, and in short order, a doctor was called in to do biopsies.

He looked me in the eye and said, I want to be clear with you, this doesn’t look good. I became uncharacteristically still. He noted that my calm and my focus would likely serve me well as I navigated the many decisions ahead. Calm and focus? Or panic and denial? Tough call.

Christmas Day came and went, full of family and friends and food and our annual Bingo game. (My guys make fun of the Bingo, but none of us would go back to the whole gift brouhaha for anything).

The following morning, a call from my doctor: reports are in, please bring your husband with you to hear the news. Pretty much the best he was able to give us, was that I was not Stage Four. After a clean mammogram the previous March, we could hardly believe what we were hearing, even with my strong family history.

For three nights Brian and I clung to one another, sleeping very little, weeping as we marveled at the adventure of a life we’ve had together, and the gift of our beautiful boys.

On the fourth day, as I listened to a recording of Gabe and me singing, as Brian and Matthew were talking in the living room, I closed the door to our bedroom and had a full-blown panic attack. How could I leave them? This was unspeakable. I was claustrophobic in my own mind: no escape anywhere from the fear that was rising like a tidal wave.

 I called a friend, I paced the floor, and then, finally, all alone, I sat down and started to breathe. In, and out. In, out. I’ve never been a meditator—I’m way too squirmy for that--but I remembered a song we sing at the Unitarian Society: when I breathe in, I breathe in Peace. When I breathe out, I breathe out Love.

I felt my body settle down. I became more aware--aware of the obvious fact that at least at this moment, I was very much alive. Then I became calm. Grateful, even. I kept breathing--and I decided then and there, that as best I could, this was how I wanted to live the rest of my life, no matter how long it might be.

In my waking hours, I began to think a lot about death. About our society’s stories around it, and what we make it mean. Even as Brian and I considered the many treatment possibilities, I found that I needed to hold two opposing ideas absolutely simultaneously: one, that I would live a long life, and this experience would be my great teacher, and two, that I might be leaving this beautiful earth much sooner than I had planned. 

 I told myself that death is the great mystery, and hey, I love a good mystery.

Many people urged me to keep thinking positively, and for me this was the way to do so. I needed to prepare myself for my life and for my death, at the same time.  And I needed to be impeccable with the stories I was telling myself about it all.

Let me give an example. One day, I was in the bathtub for one of my marathon soaks. I find the warm water, the curving embrace of the porcelain, the scent of the lavender soap, all of it, to be delightful. It fills me with delight.

So there I was, reveling in my senses, when I reached out for a magazine for cancer survivors that I’d grabbed for company.  I opened it to a random page, and what do you know: an article by a 15-year breast cancer survivor! She waxed poetic about her deepened joy in living, then went on to list by name her many support-group friends who were…DEAD.

In the space of, what? A minute? Less? I went from being a blissed-out creature of the water to a stressed-out creature of the mind. My thoughts were spinning, swinging through the trees like a newly liberated barrel of monkeys. Anxiety… sadness…despair…but then, wait.

I said it out loud: WAIT. WAIT A MINUTE. Those are just black marks on a piece of paper. And that is her story, the story she made. It is hers—not mine. This what is true, here and now: I am in the water, in my bathroom. I am alive. I am breathing. I breathe in, and out. In, peace. Out, love. The water is warm. I smell lavender. My breath is timeless like the waves of the ocean. This is a much better story for bathing.

I have never been a nature girl. I was more the type who would say, yup, lovely view. Tea, anyone?  But now, I often find myself thinking about the ocean. I go there, and I feel my heart fill with love for it, and for the way the clouds, on certain days, look like marshmallow crème. And how trees are so kind when you touch them.

In February, I got the flu. Somehow, I missed the memo about chemo and fever. They do not mix. On the third interminable, miserable night, certain that it must be almost morning, the clock said I had been in bed for one hour.

Brian was out of town, and his mom, my beloved bonus mom, Paula, was staying with us. She asked if we might call her Unity Prayer Hotline. A woman read a prayer for me, I wept like a child. The words didn’t matter, the quality of her reading did not. It was enough that she was there, somewhere in space, a stranger, ministering to me. I thought about how often I have fallen short in ministering to others.

Afterward, I went back to bed, and began to think about our friend Ron’s grandfather, who was a dear friend and peer of Gandhi’s. When his grandfather walked in the street, people kissed the hem of his robes. Ron told me once that his grandfather always said the faith you were exposed to as a child would always carry power for you.

Then, I did the something I never would have expected: I cried out to Jesus. I said, Please. Please help me. I cannot do this alone; I've lost my strength. I cannot idolize you, but I believe in everything you ever stood for. Help me, please. I promise to do all I can to walk the path you laid.

I didn’t feel exactly feel his presence then, but I felt his Light, and the Light from all the teachers who came before us. I understood that they were there, in the woman on the phone, in Paula, in you, in me, in everyone. This is the story I made.

The next night, I ended up in the Emergency Room. (On the phone, my oncologist had said, Go NOW, as quickly as you can).

It was a Friday night and the place was packed, but I was put in a room within all of two minutes, tubes and monitors everywhere. The nurses, the doctors, the weary people waiting for care—I could see the light in all of them.

Now I have a new story about death.

When stars in the heavens die, even as they go completely dark, their illumination is still traveling at the speed of light into infinity. I think our spirits are like those stars. Our light, once we shine it into the world, just keeps shining, on and on, even when the source is long gone.

The other day, a huge dragonfly flew into the house, through doors left open to the breeze. When we lived in Iowa, one year for the local parade, I was a dragonfly, with shimmering wings. I’ve had an affinity for dragonflies ever since.

Well, this one was beating her wings against the high clerestory windows, wanting out, unaware that just a few feet away, the doors were wide open.

All afternoon, she fluttered against those high windows. I worried that she would die up there, and ruin a perfect metaphor.

I wondered, would I be willing to tell a lie in order to make a happy ending? After all, my whole point is that we get to make our stories. Or could I frame it in such a way that whatever happened, the ending would be all right? Yes, of course I could.

But, we also get to have a say in how the story goes.

So I waited.  After dark, I turned off all the lights, save a single lamp. And by bedtime, there she was, her beautiful iridescent self, resting on the clean white cloth of our window covering.

I tried to shake her loose, out into the night, but she was asleep, dreaming whatever dragonflies dream.

I walked through the darkened room to the kitchen for a piece of paper to help move her. Smiled—smiled—when I realized that it was the Kaleidoscope, our Unitarian Society’s newsletter. Like they hadn't lifted me up enough times, and now there they were lifting her.

 Gently, I transferred her to a table outside. She was still, very still.

The next morning, before leaving for Sunday service, I went out to touch her. Her wings quivered—then abruptly she was airborne, and away....

I could wax poetic here, as if it has been that simple for me, but I want to be clear that I struggle with my mortality, and especially my ego, on many levels. We all have our death walking along beside us, and it not necessary, or even healthy to look there all the time. But sometimes you get an invitation to do so, and looking there, long and hard, is like having a magic mirror that shows you all sorts of things you’d never noticed before.

This can be like having one of those magnifying mirrors that at some point in my aging process, I decided are simply overrated.

I would love to say that now I am transformed into some sort of pillar of Zen, but I am not. At ALL. One can be awakened, but to stay awake is the trick.

For instance, chemo throws a woman my age into full-blown menopause, and as soon as I got my first clean PET scan, I was back to whining about missing eyebrows, new wrinkles, and hot flashes. This, when two months earlier, all I wanted was to stay here on earth a while longer.

Not that I don’t still want that.

I think to myself, no one lives forever...but how will everyone get along without me?  What about the mountain lions?!  I want to imagine the world just ekeing by. But what I know is that the world will be fine without me, and I am sorry to tell you, without any of us for that matter.

This helps me to remember that in the end, the point of the story is not to be loved—though that is sweet, and necessary. The point is to be the one who loves. To be kind, like the trees. To breathe like the ocean, steady and strong. And when the time comes, to let your spirit be like that dragonfly, winging her way into the world at the speed of light.