LIKE BREADCRUMBS
My mama loved to tell this story of the man in the grocery store with a severely disfigured hand. Of all distractions up and down the aisles, this is the one the five-year-old version of me found most intriguing of all.
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The scars we wear are not always visible. I imagine those of us who carry around the obvious signs of some kind of distress must tire at the attention they draw. Yet those of us with hidden wounds [those not only of the body] so often long for the kindred of belonging [understanding] that accompanies what the eyes take in.
I think how different our lives would be if we disciplined ourselves to observe with the parts of us that have nothing to do with sight.
The evidence of my recent trials is tiny, laparoscope in size. What lies behind them is a different matter altogether, a kind of necessary journey that is challenging to describe. Necessary, of course, in life-saving measure but more in ways that demanded I evolve according to some cosmic plan.
“We are His.” A stunning statement made this past week by my Goddaughter just two days after losing a pregnancy and her ability to ever carry a baby again. Those who wonder how we even survive may point to these three words with a mild amount of curiosity …until the meaning of them sinks in.
I write about my cancer not to elicit sympathy [or curiosity] but to connect my life with yours. The response I crave is not some grief over a lab result but a deep well of knowing, being kindred to what it feels like to be in the thick of it …
What are you in the thick of right now?
There is no shame in what you’re going through, no competition with pain—
To compare takes away our ability to look at what we’re going through square in the face,
It diminishes the importance of understanding why we are in a particular situation,
It distracts us from doing everything we can to make it right.
In many ways your life does not belong to you. Folded within the privacy you seek may be the solution someone else is desperate for. What we hide out of shame, or pride, or even humility may be precisely what another needs.
God knows that what we’re missing isn’t more information.
What we’re craving is a vulnerability of the heart—
A willingness to look at what is disfigured in us,
no matter how difficult it is,
then to be willing to share all the tiny bits, like breadcrumbs. Not to find our way back…but to make a new path.
NOTES:At the park during my photo shoot, Daisy's owner hollered not to eat my breadcrumbs. Of course, she did it anyway. Breadcrumbs are tempting. It's hard to leave them alone. I think that's precisely why we have this obligation to “live” a path that transforms the way we [all of us] think about the surprises that come our way. Good or bad, the way I experience what I go through makes all the difference to the next one…and the next.
Over the past three years I’ve left a lot of breadcrumbs, so many that I have been asked to advocate for friends and family in their journeys through the hard moment. This passion has led to the launch of a Patient Advocacy program/partnership that may speak to where you are.
The best breadcrumbs are ones flavored with love.