soul & marginalia.

So all day, I’ve been gathering samples. Samples of my writing, of my speech, my singing, trying to find the best representations of my “voice.” In my looking, I found an passionate plea that I posted on Facebook to get folks involved in the West Louisville Relay Life. I wrote this post on March 24, 2009 and closed it with the prose poem, “Four Skinny Trees,” by Sandra Cisneros.

Since then, the West Louisville Relay has been discontinued, folks of color continue to get cancer and not get adequate treatment until it’s too late, and I still hate cancer. Since then, my mother has been gone an additional 3 years, making it just over 10 years now, and I’m still trying to learn how to live without her on the other end of my phone call.

Since then, my friend and soror Kenisha has connected with the good folks at Gilda’s Club Louisville. And I’ve sung my songs to raise money for their invaluable services. And I can’t wait to do it again. Since then, I’ve learned that I don’t have to let cancer make me angry. Since then, Gilda’s has helped me to remember that life is funny, and wonderful, and it’s such a blessing to have one another in the midst of the pain. 

Since then, I’ve also learned about and become affiliated with the awesome organization, No Stomach for Cancer. They are oriented toward stomach cancer research AND educating the world about the very kind of stomach cancer that my mother had. While I am still angry sometimes, and miss my mother often, I am grateful for research and advocacy. Since then, I have started working with a genetic counselor to determine and adopt the appropriate measures to keep me alive should I carry the gene for hereditary diffuse gastric cancer. Since then, I still get scared, but it helps to know that someday, our efforts may outlive cancer’s devastation. Since then, I’ve gathered even more hope.

That original post is below. Since I dug it up, I wanted to share. I hope it touches you. 

Keep on keeping, y’all. 

JD

“Because cancer never sleeps…”

Ask anyone who has ever taken the “night shift” for a loved one with cancer, and s/he will surely tell you that cancer always seems to be awake, moving, perhaps even thinking, planning.

The first time I heard about the West Louisville Relay for Life, it was that line that stood out, reduced me to tears, and compelled me to become involved.

The idea of keeping someone on the track at all times between Friday evening and Saturday morning because cancer doesn’t take breaks or breathers, keeps me on the track in pursuit of a cure.

Since joining the 2007 relay in my mother’s memory after losing her to stomach cancer in 2001, I have:

§  witnessed my grandmother live and struggle with breast cancer that eventually spread to her liver and colon; we lost her on March 1, 2009;

§  tried to comfort my step-mom when we lost her Granny;

§  hugged friends and sisters grieving for mothers, fathers, siblings, and buddies;

§  watched as the famous and the little known were cared for, supported, and too often, mourned;

And in the eight years since Ma died, I have wondered if, someday, someone will be considering my wrestle with cancer.

I am no longer willing to watch anyone else suffer. I am determined to be as aggressive for a cure, as cancer is for destruction.

I participate in the West Louisville Relay because it gives me power to slay a dragon, to beat a monster, and to celebrate those who keep keeping. Raising donations for the American Cancer Society’s Relay 4 Life allows us to use our collective pain, outrage, and resolve to destroy a common enemy.

Living ten years with the immediate reality of cancer has convinced me that the expression “to win/lose one’s battle with cancer” is woefully inaccurate—a battle with cancer isn’t one to be considered won or lost; it is one that we must simply fight. To suggest otherwise dishonors the very ones we love.

 Please donate your money, energy, and meditations to the Relay 4 Life. Do it for those who have fought. Do it for all of us who would live in a cancer-free world. Join us May 15-16, 7:00pm-7:00am at Louisville’s Central High School Football Stadium to keep our feet on the path toward a cure.

***

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep. They teach.

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. Where there is left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.