You’re In My Seat.

‘You’re in my seat.’ It may not be something we say out loud, but we think it and almost right away we tell ourselves off and remind ourselves there are no ‘my seats’

Having said that, where do I think ‘my seats’ are?

There is a bus seat that I prefer to sit in. It is just before the steps to the higher seats. It has leg room and a stop button easy to reach. It is also next to the emergency door. Yes, I tinker in my head with the notion of accidents and the need to escape without squeezing through a window.

Another seat, in church, is an aisle seat two rows back from the front. The aisle seat matters because in my current health crisis I need to get to the bathroom easily. Near the front is necessary to give me a good view of the screen and the song lyrics. I know that some worshippers might mourn the loss of a hymn book, but reading from any book is challenging for me and my vision.

Another seat is in the praise and prayer meeting, my Thursday afternoon dose of strength and blessing. It means that I have to deal with a cat that leaps over me to get to the windowsill and then leaps back after taking in her front garden kingdom.

‘You’re sitting in my seat,’ was not spoken aloud, but for all the pointed looks it could have been. It was not my choice to sit where I did, but merely the last chair in the cancer ward I attend weekly. I have completed four courses of chemo therapy and have eight to go. This particular seat doesn’t face the TV, which is probably OK since I struggle with the subtitles and have no access to the remote to change channels. Was it last week I watched the Winter Olympics and watched team GB almost win a curling game? I nestle down and listen to a podcast on my phone, or read a book I have downloaded.

I find myself asking whether I would want the seat I sit in for two and a half hours while a chemical cocktail is dripped into my blood, whether I would want that seat to be someone else’s, not mine. Not mine? Yes. Someone else’s? No. I have to say I have been incredibly lucky, not to be diagnosed with cancer, but for it to be breast cancer and caught so early. Lucky is not the right word. Fortunate, perhaps. Not so fortunate to have the kind of cancer that, perhaps, may reappear down the line somewhere - hence the chemo, but medical knowledge is ever increasing and survival rates are high. But that does not mean that life is not a challenge right now.

Lent as begun and Ash Wednesday is about letting go of the things that the world treasures to take hold of all that matters to God. I am following Malcolm Guite’s book ‘Word in the Wilderness’, his selection of poetry, his own and poems other people wrote, teasing out insight on how to draw close to God. He talks of the world’s obsession with ‘body image, presentation, clothing and appearance.’ There is an inner beauty that gets overlooked and a need to be simply loved as we are. How many likes we get on a Facebook image is irrelevant.

Last week I began to lose my hair. It was always going to happen, though I hoped it might not.

Hair in my breakfast

Hair in my tea.

 Hair that’s becoming

Unfixed from me

I had a conversation with a doctor last week. It was a telephone conversation looking at how I am faring. Had I been reacting badly to medication, there would have been rest periods or coming off chemo completely, but my side effects are few and mostly minor. There have been a couple of rough nights, bedding and bed-wear changes and working my way through rolls of toilet paper. I have a sniffly nose. But it is all very minor. But I do feel fragile and I am beginning to hate the phrase, ‘if you are up to it,’ applied to every invitation to meet up with someone.

I feel I am being dismantled by cancer. It is not such a bad thing in the sense that there are attitudes, ways of thinking and acting and priorities that have bee pushed under a microscope. When I began the cancer journey I was determined to invite people along with me. I was asking for help, not because I was at the stage where I couldn’t do things for myself, but to give others a part to play. Nothing is worse than being an observer and not knowing how to help, so I ask for help. But I am questioning how much I try to protect them from some of the realities of cancer. Perhaps it is more about protecting me. There is a wisdom in not sharing every tear. But where to draw the line is not easy.

Malcolm talks about ash as being fertiliser, ‘a life enabler, a source of new growth.’ I subscribe to a company that sends out seed, pots and compost monthly. I haven’t planted out the last few boxes. I have run out of windowsills and putting anything outside in sub zero temperatures will not result in growth, The PVC greenhouse that was torn apart by strong winds had not been repaired. It is encouraging to see things grow, things you planted, grow. I am in a place of planting. This is not an empty space where nothing is happening. Seeds are being sown, by God, by me, by others into ground that once was busy, but now isn’t.

To end – a hopeful poem

There will be a time

When knees bow and tongues confess

The greatness of God

There will be a time

When the word of God dwells deep

Rooted deep in me

There will be a time

No blood tests, no more chemo

Cancer in e ends

here will be a time