Story

In the background is McLachlan singing Adia: "We are born innocent--believe me Adia, we are still innocent...it's easy, we all falter, but does it matter?" In the long run, when the earth crashes into the sun, or spins out into outer space where there is no air, or the aliens come to take over the earth because we've trashed it, and we are condemned to board their spaceship and be transported to the outer reaches of hell...no. It doesn't matter.

But in the heart, where I happen to hold all the burdens that will fit (though I think it may burst)...yes. It does matter.

Last night I had an odd sort of--well, I described it to John as a fantasy, but it was really more of a waking dream. I was lying in a hospital bed, close to death, and John and some others came into my room with Dr. Schauer, who told me a new chemo had been developed, a very different kind of chemo, and they were going to give it to me. They started to infuse this chemo into my veins, and I lifted up just slightly out of my body, and I thought, it's a joke. So I said to Dr. Schauer, if this is dying, bring it on. But he insisted, in that nice way he has, that it was not a joke, and we were really hoping it would work. John and the others were chuckling at my reaction, but they also kept encouraging me. I felt as though I were lying on a magic carpet, and the most wonderful serum was flowing through my veins, the way air flows through your lungs into your veins in life, but I was dying, to be reborn, to something totally new. And I floated...

Crazy? Denial? I don't think so. Will I die soon? I don't know, but I'm doing well right now. I just want to fix all the things I did wrong in life, and that's one burden too many. I never learned the first lesson: take care of yourself. I am learning it now, too late.

May