Even on the darkest days
an invitation to silence
I wrote and shared this as a note, a few days ago, on 1 July. The response across all platforms I shared it on has been immense, it clearly touched hearts and souls. So here today, I offer it again, that it may reach those who haven’t been touched by it yet.
These words aren’t about me, they’re about you, they’re a reminder to check your true location, to remain in presence, through all of life, not just the days the sun shines.
Read to the end to discover the mantra that is my beating heart.
Three years ago, I had my first chemo. Hospitalised within three days, with neutropenic sepsis and toxicity, amongst other things, I was in hospital for 11 days, with another 5 days as a day inpatient on the cancer unity, on more drips than I've ever seen, too weak to get out of bed, blood transfusions being the final step before being freed to return home, like a wounded bird.
I am here today to celebrate that three years. That singular chemo, number 1 out of 18 scheduled treatments, along with 2 out of 18 scheduled treatments of targeted therapy, almost threw the baby out with the bathwater. But I survived, and the cancer didn't.
All treatment was stopped once I was out of hospital, the entire 5 year plan was shelved after those two treatments. No radiotherapy, no hormone therapy, no bone therapies. Just two mastectomies, a year apart, resulting in a full bilateral mastectomy. I am comfortable in my body, and love it all the more for its ability to continue, even against the odds at times.
If the cancer ever comes back, I will meet it afresh, and walk in the full awareness that I have already been advised that I will not be a candidate for chemotherapy unless there are some radical new developments in the treatments.
I don't ever take a single day of this life for granted, I never did, long before cancer arose in this body, so this was easier to navigate as a result, and continues to be so.
Feeling blessed, so very blessed.
Today, please pay attention to what is, right now, right here, right under your nose. Because it's the only place you're ever going to find yourself. No yearning, no regrets, nothing that takes you away from this breath, this in breath, out breath, this eternal moment. It is all you really have, only this.
This is where I’m at, right here, right now, only this.
These words are my mantra — let them be yours too.
Life as it is here and now, is the most sacred discovery we could possibly make.
Even in our darkest days, we should notice this — I am simply here now.
Let us feel the wind on our cheeks, the dust seemingly suspended in a momentary beam of sunlight, in-breath, out-breath.
Like this, we remain present to what is.
Anything that is not here now, is fast-forwarding into our imagined versions of the future — they don’t exist.
Don’t be fooled into believing otherwise.
Belief is not needed in our being here now, we already are, and we can never not be.
Footnote: Since writing this just a few days ago, I received two further health updates related to the harm that one chemo did to my body. They weren’t positive ones from a medical perspective, but to me, they are, and can only be, a blessing. Stay blessed my friends.
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Words by Andō.
Images by Willow.
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