The Firm Grip of Love's Hand

A friend was telling me of his troubles the other day and expressed a sense of the energy in his life being like cancer. Then he immediately appologized for using a cancer analogy with me. I wasn't sore at him in the least, though I am surrounded, it seems, by cancer, cancer patients and cancer survivors.

My experience with cancer has been painful. I am not the patient, or survivor. I am one of the family of the patient; in this particular case, patients. My brother died from cancer, and my mother is sick with cancer, and will not likely get better. I have friends who are treating cancer and friends who are getting regular check ups to make sure they haven't relapsed into cancer after being cancer free. Cancer affects the entire family as well as the patient. The family is at a total loss as to what to do, how to act and what support to give. After a while, things find some realm of normalcy and we get through each day, appreciating our breathing and the new day rising on our loved ones faces.

At some point I found a place where I understood unconditional love and felt it with all my being. After finding that love, I can go back to it when I miss my brother, witness the essence of love and make it through the next day without him. This gives me inspiration to try to help other families in some small way. Even by my writing this, I may help others to see that through the pain we can find a place of love and rest in our spirits.



“There is a moment in time
When the knowledge of love and the experience of love
Precariously meet to form one brilliant point of rest for the soul.
From this point every direction is the same, backwards…forwards
All indelibly marked by the peace that comes, when it is finally understood,
That nothing can shake you from the firm grip of love’s hand.”

--Margaret Becker

sleep deprived thoughts...

As I slip further into sleep deprivation, some things concerning the human condition of the heart become clearer. Or maybe it is that they become so much more confused that I have a totally different perspective and understanding of the energies that exchange between the opposite sexes. I often find myself thinking someone feels one way about me, then discover it is actually totally different. I have spent so much time in celibacy between adventures of the heart that it is hard to tell when another journey is on the way. I ponder the small signs and symbols, keeping in mind the sociological and instinctive precursors to the mating ritual: a catch and hold of the eye, a soft touch as one passes by, questions and answers that keep coming. I am afraid it could all be just one worker getting to know another, just happening to be spending more time together as the projects require, instead of the new adventure I could be looking for.