As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim and in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came


I say more: the just man justices
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
Christ -- for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

~1918, Gerard Manley Hopkins

18 Months and Thriving!

Today is my 18-month Cancerversary and I am in a celebratory mood!

This is strange for me.

Being a budding scholar of death studies does not lend itself to much in the way of celebration...or happiness..or anything bright and shiny.

And recently, I have been feeling a LOT of survivor's guilt.

I'm starting a research project and the topic is, of course, death...and cancer...people who die of cancer...and I realize that a lot of people had a lot less time between diagnosis and death than I have, even at 18 months.

and so I was struggling with it - a sort of "why me?" only not the "I have cancer, why me?", but the "I'm not dead yet, why me?"

But that's not very useful, is it?

And I doubt very much that the people who have died of cancer after a short period of time would celebrate me being down in the dumps because I'm not dead yet.

They'd probably think that it was really stupid.

Which it is.

So, for all of those folks out there who have died of cancer, I live life for you! I celebrate life for you! I kick cancer's nasty rat ass for you!

As long as I possibly can.

Count on it.