Chemo Round #6: Fireworks & Roses

Treatment last Wednesday was the smoothest one yet and my residual worry about the port was dispelled in a manner of seconds as nurse Lisa assured me it looked fine.  It was still slightly purple, she agreed, but chalked it up to an undissolved stitch that had worked its way to the skin.  

Melissa, my friend and former employer from my “Fireworks” days (back in the late nineties, Austin’s best paint-your-own-pottery studio) met me at Texas Oncology and our time in the waiting room was brief.  We chose a nice window seat in the treatment room, fairly sparse of patients and very quiet, the soft hum of Mopac traffic a soothing white noise behind the beeps and whirs of machines and rolling chairs.  Spotting Lisa’s beautiful forearm tattoo, a blooming red rose, sent Missy almost singing along with a song she’d just heard on the way over with the lyrics “I love your attitude, your rose tattoo” and it sure was apropos of the moment.

The time flew as we caught up on life, hearing of her Camino de Santiago trek a few years back, her transitions from entrepreneur to the insurance business to Austin real estate.  She is a mover and a shaker, unafraid to take on tough challenges and eager to serve others for the highest, greater good. I’ve always been adept at picking good living role models and am ever grateful to have been introduced to this one.  I can still recall the day when me and Mom, down from Kansas on her first visit after Roman and I moved back to Austin from Clovis, NM in 1997, came across Fireworks and decided to stop in and paint a mug.  We got to talking with the handsome shop-keep, and after half an hour of painting and gabbing, relishing in the cozy art studio, and exclaiming, “I want to work here!”  the shop-keep, I think his name was Dan, said, “tomorrow is actually my last day here and Melissa, the owner has been interviewing folks, but I don’t think she’s filled the position…she will be here in 20 minutes if you’d like to talk to her.”

Indeed, we had a good chat and she hired me on the spot. Sometimes wishes are granted in real time and lifelong friends are found in an instant.  Though decades have passed, my heart connections with friends like Melissa, have only grown stronger and once again I am humbled by this experience of having cancer, finding the golden nuggets and the silver linings of it: the reuniting and reconnection/deepening connection with others, elimination of trivial or meaningless subject matter and of wasting time, forgiveness of self and others for known or perceived wrongs, the practice of acceptance of what is and harnessing compassion for everyone: remembering each of us have our own struggles, our varied journeys, our wins, our losses, sometimes our ties, within this game of life.  

It is a rich pageant of comedies and tragedies, apex moments and mundane ones.  Hopefully when we meet the end, we have no regrets, or few enough to forgive, and go gently into the unknown.