The Glorious First of June

Whenever June comes around, I have been put in mind of two things. My younger brother's birthday is the first--he was born 34 years ago this day (Hooray!). The second is a sea battle that took place between the British and French navies on June 1st--222 years ago. The battle is referred to (in English, anyway) as "The Glorious First of June."

With this year's June, however, I have been playing the "one year ago" game. The first half of June 2015 packed in a lot of action--so there is always something to process. June first -- the anniversary of the MRI and the phone calls with my doctor and the buying of a one-way place ticket to Los Angeles.

Late at night on June 2nd of this year, J and I stood in the kitchen replaying the events from exactly one year earlier--I will not give you the full blow-by-blow of my travel day, but even we had forgotten some of the drama. The switching of airports. The kid throwing up in the car. The switching of flights, again-- me on the phone with my sister while she looked up online to see if there was any option left to us that would get me into a doctor's office at Cedars-Sinai by 8am the next morning. She found it. I booked it. I made it. My luggage didn't. I crawled into bed at Jesse's grandmother's in LA at what was 5:30am on the East Coast. In the midst, so much drama and adrenaline. Looking back, so much to be grateful for. So many offers of help and so much generosity from others.  Mentally we bounce back and forth between the past and the present.

Yesterday, on a glorious first weekend in June, the local cancer center hosted a celebration of life called Viva la Vida (in conjunction with National Cancer Survivors Day). I got an invitation in the mail a few weeks ago, because although most of my care is with the team down at Cedars I did do my radiation treatment locally. At first I thought that it wasn't really for me. Not just that it wasn't the sort of thing that I would want to do; but that it actually wasn't really for someone like me. What does being a cancer survivor really mean, anyway? Who counts? And now that I am doing quite well it is all too easy to remember the dramatic plane rides and forget about the doors that opened with words like "multiple metastases" and "lobectomy" (lung, not brain). Doors that have swung shut again for the present. Who wants to dwell on mortality, anyway? But with now-closed doors there is also at the back of things the concern that I made a great big deal out of nothing. That perhaps this article was written for me: Report: Today the Day They Find Out You're a Fraud. And so accepting an invitation to a celebration for cancer survivors seemed like an assertion of status I don't really have.

Wait a minute? In spite of my fear of claiming something that isn't mine--or that I don't feel that I deserve--as I considered, I took a few steps back. I left the invitation on the refrigerator for a few days (ok, weeks?) and thought about it. I have had cancer. I have. It really happened. I was there. And then less of me was there. It so happens that my cancer doesn't match up with my idea of what qualifies as having had cancer (see Onion article, above, reflecting on a universal condition of man run amok). On reflection, though, I think that outside sources would corroborate that I have had cancer. And survived. So maybe this invitation was for me, after all?

Viva la Vida was also for friends and family of survivors. We haven't talked a ton about cancer with the kids, but they have borne this along with us. And so when I get an invitation that means free sports and lunch and face painting and ice cream and carnival games and crafts and magicians and hair painting nd live music, I decide that I am not going to take that away from them. That maybe it will be good for all of us to name what has gone down this year. And to say it has been hard. And to be grateful to God for getting us through from there to here.

Going to Viva la Vida together was one way to acknowledge that maybe I am doing so well because He has been good and has heard these prayers of ours, and of so many others--not because there was never anything really wrong to begin with. There was something very, very wrong. And for the past year (and who knows how many more?) that part has come untrue. Going into this weekend I realized that not acknowledging the depth of need meant not giving glory to God; meant taking for granted the place in which I now find myself. Which is a good place.


So we went. And we played. And I waited in the (seemingly) interminable line for face painting--twice. It is no small thing that I was able to stand on my own two feet for that long, friends. There were carnival games and an ice cream booth and a cookie booth and a popcorn booth.  Just walk right up, there for the taking--no questions asked. Everything a gift. Painting crafts and lunch and pink streaks in Pixie's hair and jewels on Nutmeg's forehead. Sunshine and sea breezes.

That sea battle I mentioned earlier? War ships have most of their guns along the sides. Instead of lining up his ships with their sides facing a line of the sides of French ships, the commander broke with contemporary conventions and instead ordered each ship to head straight into the line of enemy ships--and through. This meant taking heavy fire on the approach, followed by the ability to blast both sides at once. Into the fire and through. Fully engaged. The Glorious First of June.

Bud "won" the kite because he kept in the air for more than 10 minutes. He ended up letting out ALL of the string.