Long after we first met, I sit again on the “this-is-where-I’m-safe” couch in the hospital’s
green anteroom, waiting for my turn to be called. I always choose this couch because
it’s where the roll of the dice favors me when I come to learn if my borrowed time has
been extended. You found me here, and I hope you will find me again. I listen hard for
the couch cushion to alert me “There she is!”
I think back to the time when I first came to this place, terrified. I’m taking notes in
a journal filled with questions that could never really be answered because there are no
clean “yes-s” or “no’s” here.
“Are you a writer?,” you ask, approaching me in your crisp blue jacket, embroidered with
the word “Volunteer”, festooned with a scatter of enamel-painted years-of-service pins.
Your lined face is framed with a sparkly chain that prevents your pink glasses from
slipping down your nose. You look over the rim at me, but I keep my head lowered.
“Are you a writer?” you demand again.
“I’m writing down questions for my visit, that’s all,” I say with some offense.
“So, then, you are a writer!”
Still unable to look up, I see your sturdy brown shoes, the chunky heels holding your full
purpose upright while you wait for the courage of a good answer.
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” I admit, finally looking you straight in the eye. “Writing
questions helps me to remember what to ask. It helps to calm me.”
You reach into your boxy blue pocket and hand me an oblong card with a graphic
image: a pen in hand, a lined pad, an open laptop.
I study it:
“Visible Ink: Writing program empowering patients to give voice to their stories.”
“Thank you for thinking of me, but I’m not REALLY a writer. I‘m a teacher. I write
school reports.”
Your no-nonsense look tells me I’m in for more.
“Well, you weren’t writing school reports here where I found you. You were writing your
own story, today’s story. You should keep that up!”
You take my free hand in both of yours as if warming it up for my next sentence.
Today, on that same “this- is-where-I’m-safe” couch, I pray you will wander in with your
blue jacket, sturdy shoes and pink glasses on their sparkly chain, that you will once
again find me here. I want to tell you how your instinct and kindness brought me to my
new writing heartbeat, how all the questions and fears turned into the Visible Ink of
words, pages and a kind of healing I would never find in the clinic chair or chemo suite.
I want to thank you for knowing what I did not know for myself, that sharing my words
and stories would give me a way to survive.
Thought I don’t yet know yet if I’m once again ok for another year, I sit, wait and write in
my journal, holding the memory of you close, showing me that whatever happens, I am
always safe on the page.