Back to Life

My last entry was August 6 - just before we learned that Gerry had cancer. For that story, you can go to www.caringbridge.org/visit/gerrydavies

But now, Gerry is cancer free, Andy is home from Japan, and our family is starting to come back to life. I have been, we have all been, tremendously supported by St. Martin's, and prayers and gestures of good will came in from all over the place. I've also been contacted - perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by some disturbance in The Force, perhaps by the hand of God - by a number of very old friends - from high school and college days. These are all people I haven't seen in decades. I've never been a very good "absent" friend, which is something I regret, and I've often thought of some of these folks with tenderness and curiosity. But I was never moved to pick up a pen, the phone, or even to google them and find out where they are now.

Somehow - they were moved to reach out to me - and all through the hard weeks of the fall and early winter, I'd pick up the phone and hear a voice I hadn't heard in years. One phone call led to an impromptu college reunion in Boston, another to a planned get together later in the spring, all to renewed friendships, more support and a renewal of my energy and sense of being connected to others. This strange array of reconnections has been one of the most precious blessings of this curiously blessed ordeal.

Yes, blessed. I always was suspicious of people who said that some terrible catastrophe was a blessing. It sounded falsely pious to my cynical ears. But now I know what they mean. I would never have chosen this for Gerry - it's been ghastly, and hard and painful and scary - but it has given us a deeper emotional intimacy with each other, it has taught me to open myself up to the care and support of others, it has given me insights into the world of the seriously ill...it's grounded me more deeply in prayer. And most of all, this experience has taught me to be thankful.