CANCER: A Bleak and Beautiful Wilderness

This is my first Lucent Gift blog post, and I struggle to find the right words. I could tell you that cancer is a long journey, but that’s apparent. I could say it was a blessing in disguise, but that may be hard to believe. I think I’ll just point out that little yellow dot in the photo below. That’s me. In Iceland. We started planning our trip to Iceland while I was receiving chemotherapy. I’d longed impatiently for years to stand on those black shores gazing on icebergs and glaciers—to be at the end of the earth whipped about by the howling winds of the North Sea. In reality, though, I found the landscape vast and intimidating, sometimes hiding inside our farmhouse lodgings and covering my head because it was too much to process. Looking back though, something inside me was so thoroughly satisfied for having gazed upon that country for a mere 15 days. So, I guess that’s as good a start as any to describe my cancer journey. Bleak, massive, intimidating ... but, in the end ... stunningly beautiful, perfectly placed, and an unexpected slaking of a ineffable thirst.