Peter and I made a visit to Two West at Kaiser Hospital yesterday. That's the Oncology wing I spent so many days, weeks and months on. In all the time I was there, I had never experienced it so quiet...almost deserted. Yes, it was a holiday (4th of July), but I had spent so many of this past years major holidays in those rooms and they were brimming over with patients, nurses and staff bustling around the floor with tasks too numerous to relay. There was an emptiness yesterday, and I was glad to see that, at least for now, the list of inpatient cancer patients at good old Zion (Kaiser) is shorter. It seems only a few rooms were occupied. When I was there, there was often a waiting list to get a room on that floor.
There was one room I spent more time in than others....or at least my memories of that room were stronger. The door was wide open as we walked by and I noticed a lovely picture, looking like two hearts, was pinned to the poster board on the wall. It was almost as if the door had been left open to the room just for me. It was inviting. Pleasant. No one was around. Peter and I walked closer to the picture, intrigued by it, and somehow I knew it had something to do with Yogananda. Turns out it was a page from Yogananda's (the founder of SRF where I spent 30 years of my life) calendar with one of his quotes about love. "Love rules the Universe" it said (or something to that effect). For those of you who know my connection with Yogananda you will understand how incredibly touching and sychronicitous it was for me to find this simple quote hanging on a wall at Kaiser 2 1/2 months after I was discharged. There are so many poets, writers, teachers throughout our planet's rich history. Of all people to have been quoted in this simple message of love hanging on the wall....
It's life's profound messages in the littlest things that mean so very much. Somehow Love was present in that room, in the hospital, in the chemo, in this strange, difficult and life-changing journey I've been on.
I put my head down on the bed, overcome by the moment.
Good news came from my oncologist that he is extending my Disability for another year. It was to end in November. This gives me much more time to focus on healing...
What a gift!
ReplyDeleteWow, Heidi, I am just getting to read this and I am also in awe of the serendipity of finding things as you describe - especially the note. It is almost as if your own transition was focal in helping many others find healing there as well. I say that knowing what a great heart you have, so I could see you bringing such a thing to be. ♥
ReplyDeleteDear Heidi, For some reason notifications of updates to your blog stopped coming to my e-mail so I wasn't aware that you had added some posts since the Spring. I had gotten used to relying on those notifications and am sorry that I didn't check directly for updates. I'm really happy now to read your last few posts and to see your beautiful smile in the photo you posted. It was especially touching to read this particular post -- incredibly touching because sometimes we may think there will be some big obvious sign, but it turns out that in a sweetly subtle, entirely unexpected way we are reminded that we are indeed watched over.
ReplyDeleteI read this beautiful poem recently entitled "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by William Butler Yeats. I hope it inspires you:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
With loving friendship and wishes for your continued recovery,
Ellie
relatively old post that I am just reading my wonderful relative, heidi, love you, let's talk sometime soon!
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